


Boiling Frogs

by Vanya_Instance



Series: Something Interesting [3]
Category: Psych (TV 2006)
Genre: Attack, Case Fic, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Genderbending, Humor, Humour, Injury, Murder, Murder Mystery, Romance, Sequel, Shassie, Shawn and Gus are up to no good as usual, Shawn has always been a girl, Solving crimes, but can be read as a stand-alone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:16:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 60,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21926581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vanya_Instance/pseuds/Vanya_Instance
Summary: Lassiter and Juliet are in hot water over their failure to protect a high profile businessman who has been receiving death threats before his upcoming nuptials. With the detectives and the SBPD having to wade through an ocean of red tape to avoid causing a misstep in this case, it’s up to Shawn and Gus to get to the bottom of things, whether the cops want them involved or not.Meanwhile Shawn finds she’s in hot water herself. Her personal life and career have begun to mix in ways she wasn’t prepared for.But will she get out of the water, or will she boil alive?This is the third installment of the 'Something Interesting' Series, and though it should work as a standalone, it follows after the stories told in 'Baby Steps' and 'The California Annual Police Awards Gala.'
Relationships: Carlton Lassiter & Shawn Spencer, Carlton Lassiter/Shawn Spencer, Fem!Shawn Spencer/Carlton Lassiter
Series: Something Interesting [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/393865
Comments: 129
Kudos: 185





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a work of fan fiction using characters from the TV show Psych which is created by Steve Franks. I do not claim ownership of the characters or world of Psych. The story and original characters are all my own.

Shawn and Lassiter had started something.

No, it wasn’t a sewing circle or a book club. They hadn’t joined a yoga class or started taking self-defence classes. And whilst it was tempting to take up cross-fit just for the online bragging rights, it wasn’t that either.

They weren’t overly obvious. They didn’t make a big deal of it. Their public displays of affection were all but invisible.

Ask them about it to their face and both would vehemently deny it.

The only person who knew about Shawn and Lassiter’s somewhat unexpected situation was Gus, Shawn’s best friend. And the only person suspicious was Henry, Shawn’s father. Shawn blamed Gus entirely for Henry’s suspicions. He never could keep a secret. He had to let them out somehow. Any information Gus should really keep to himself about Shawn was a ticking time bomb in his mouth. So whilst he had thankfully been biting his tongue about the Shawn and Lassiter in the SBPD, he had clearly been slipping up somewhere else.

But Shawn didn’t bring up Gus’ inability to keep schtum. Shawn _couldn’t_ bring it up, because that would have opened the line to conversation about what had started between Shawn and Lassiter. Something Shawn sincerely wanted to keep unspoken for as long as possible.

Because therein lay the issue that could keep Shawn up at night.

Shawn and Lassiter weren’t _dating._

Sure, they were as close to dating as one could define. If dating had a checklist they probably ticked all the boxes. But they didn’t have an official title. There was no big neon sign over their heads that flashed vibrantly announcing they were dating. They didn't have matching pyjama sets and Shawn hadn’t received any official documents from the government declaring they were a couple. So Shawn wasn’t Lassiter’s girlfriend, nor was she his beau. She wasn’t his partner, his boo or his sweet thang. 

So when the question arose in Shawn’s mind, _what are we?_ As it increasingly was doing, she shoved that question right down deep into the recesses of her mind and marked it as Something She Didn’t Want To Deal With Right Now.

Because what they had, whatever it was, undefined, abstract and unlabelled, was great.

Shawn and Lassiter would keep affection downplayed at work. Both were keen to keep their personal lives personal. They maintained their professional distance and opted to express mild revulsion towards the other. In the bullpen and on cases, Shawn was treated by Lassiter with the same respect he’d have treated something unfortunate he had found on the bottom of his shoe. And in return Shawn treated Lassiter like she always had, a man who was too big for his britches, and someone who she was eager to rile up at every opportunity.

The pair would bicker and argue all day at work. Lassiter would get his panties in a twist and then lose it when Shawn swooped in and solved the case with a flourish and more references to eighties movies than was ever strictly necessary. Shawn continued to pester him, Juliet and Chief Vick at every opportunity.

And there were always plenty of opportunities.

But in their increasingly frequent times alone, most often spent in Shawn’s apartment or Lassiter’s house, the pair got on amicably. Surprisingly so.

Their near constant bickering at the office meant that they had little to fight about after hours. They would eat dinner, go on a walk, and even see a movie in the theatre all while enjoying the other’s presence.

Not to mention Lassiter and Shawn both enjoyed having an ear to listen when they were stuck on a particularly complicated case. After all, bringing work home was never an issue. Both of them found it next to impossible to stop working on a case just because office hours had drawn to a close.

But recently, there was one case Lassiter wouldn’t tell Shawn about.

Said case had become somewhat of a mystery around the SBPD. Lassiter and O’Hara were clearly part of something very big, very important, yet very classified. It was so classified in fact, that even the other detectives and cops in the precinct were growing curious as to the details. The bullpen and halls of the precinct were filled with quiet rumours about what kind of interesting case detectives Lassiter and O’Hara could be a part of.

Some thought it involved spies and maybe the FBI. Others whispered that it had something to do with tearing down a cult. Buzz had heard rumours that it involved Elvis Presley. But Woody was convinced it was something to do with NASA. He had even put a bet on it.

Gus, a man with his head firmly on his shoulders, was of the opinion that it was nothing interesting and everyone was getting overexcited, as usual.

Shawn thought Woody’s NASA theory could be onto something.

Shawn kept a careful eye on proceedings. Curiosity and Shawn Spencer were old friends.

The detectives would walk into Chief Vick’s office. Lassiter would look out of the glass walls of the office to make sure that no one was paying attention, then he and Juliet would quickly close all the blinds, with some assistance from the Chief. A short time later, two men in black suits would enter her office, not bothering to knock. They would then lock the door, and it would remain locked until they left soon after. The men in black suits never stayed longer than an hour, and when they were gone, they would leave the precinct driving off in one black car with a registration plate that would only be traced back to a private catering company that Shawn had never heard of before.

Not that Shawn would have used Juliet’s computer when she was making some coffee to run a licence plate. And especially not when she had expressly been told not to by Chief Vick. On numerous occasions.

But it made Shawn build with curiosity and frustration when she couldn’t uncover any details about the case. She didn’t like missing the fun. It was like something big was going down, and she was going to miss it all. Like there was a secret she wasn’t privy to. 

Shawn could perhaps have attributed her burning curiosity about the mystery case down to the fact it was all so secretive. Shawn loved secrets; having secrets, uncovering secrets and being involved in secrets. But it wasn’t simply the secrecy that drew Shawn in. A few things seemed a little off to her. Certain things that led her to believe this was more interesting than the detectives and chief were trying to make it seem.

For example, Carlton Lassiter, Head Detective of the SBPD, would normally have been chomping at the bit to solve a big or high profile case. He was forever eager for the opportunity to bask in glory and have his ego inflated to Thanksgivings Day Parade balloon proportions. But he had been proving unusually quiet about this one. He was taking it seriously, of course, but he was playing it unusually cool.

Initially Shawn had attributed it to impeccable acting on Lassiter’s part. And she had been surprised how convincing of an actor Lassiter could be when he wanted to. But that opinion had changed when she observed Juliet and Lassiter being called into Chief Vick’s office to discuss ‘a private matter’. That was how those clandestine meetings always started. There had been a slip in the infallible façade, a brief eye roll and an unimpressed look passed between the detectives. A shared emotion conveyed in a tiny glance between the partners. One which Shawn had noticed out of the corner of her eye, so brief she almost missed it, but unmistakably the look of ‘ _oh, here we go again.’_

It was then that Shawn realised that Lassiter hadn’t been even tempted to talk to Shawn about the case simply because he held little interest in it. Even more unusually, it seemed neither did Juliet. Interesting or not, Lassiter and Juliet did a great job and not telling Shawn what was going on. They didn’t bring it up, or at least they never discussed it around her. When Shawn deliberately tried to snoop, there was no paper trail, no shared emails and no texts about the case. When talking in her presence, neither partner mentioned anything suspicious or accidentally slipped any information that could inform Shawn as to what the case was about.

So what was so important as to entail frequent top secret meetings with the Chief, and the men in black, but was so boring that Lassiter and Juliet didn’t seem interested in it at all?

Shawn just had to know.

She had snooped and pried and prodded any potential source of juicy information and she had emerged juiceless. She couldn’t barge into meetings under a flimsy pretence as the Chief had been careful to lock her offices doors, most likely to prevent that exact situation occurring. And when getting in to the room had proved fruitless Shawn had put her ear to the glass of the office but only to be unable to hear anything.

Any attempts to encourage Gus to help her try to figure out what this mysterious case was had proven just as unsuccessful. Gus would merely tell her, ‘focus on the damn cases we have at hand Shawn’ and dismiss her curiosities.

However, even without Gus’ help, Shawn could at least presume a few things. For one, because Lassiter wasn’t interested in the case at hand, it couldn’t possibly involve murder or theft or anything interesting like that. If anything, Shawn had used Lassiter’s disinterest to presume that it involved something he felt was beneath him.

Maybe there was a serial car parking ticket mastermind at work, or someone was taking one too many free samples at the grocery store and had to be stopped.

But in the last week, the meetings for said mysterious case had grown in frequency. Lassiter and Juliet were called in to meetings with the Chief at increasingly strange hours and Shawn knew that something was coming to a head soon. Even if she had yet to work out what it was. But with all her pushing and prodding and even some fluttering of eyelids, a new weapon in her arsenal when it came to Lassiter, he refused to budge and tell her anything.

Shawn knew the reason. She wasn’t an idiot.

She wasn’t wanted on this case.

And Chief Vick, Lassiter and Juliet were keeping her out of it on purpose.

If anything that resolved to make Shawn learn about this mysterious case more. And it made her frustration grow when she couldn’t.

It took Shawn far too long to work out what was going on.

In fact she only figured it out the night before the big day. She had been lounging in Lassiter’s house, eating a party sized bag of chips on his couch, her feet on his coffee table. She was idly reflecting on how it was still a surreal feeling to know that she was there _with his permission_ even though she had easily made herself at home in his house by now.

Just as she had shoved another chip in her mouth, Lassiter had marched into the living area, with intention and holding two suits, one in each hand.

‘Spencer,’ he had said holding the suits up. ‘Which is better for a formal occasion?’

Mouth full of food, Shawn drew her hand out of her bag of chips to point at the suit she thought was more appropriate. Or at least it was the one that better suited Lassiter’s grey-blue eyes.

He nodded approvingly. Evidently he had been thinking the same thing. He left the room and went to hang up the suits with a self-assured smile.

Shawn’s face dropped when she saw that smile.

Lassiter never smiled like that unless something was going his way or he was having a good day. And by all counts he had been having a crappy day at work. Shawn would know. She was the reason for it. Lassiter had practically snorted flames from his nostrils when Shawn and Gus had solved the crime before he and Juliet had even arrived on the scene.

They had probably been late because they had been off on their secret case, doing secret awesome things that Shawn wasn’t allowed to be a part of. Solving the case so quickly had been a little vindictive, she would admit it.

Shawn stood up and put down her bag of chips. She wiped her chip dust covered hands on her jeans rather than Lassiter’s couch. She was getting tired of him lecturing her about getting crumbs all over his upholstery. Then she sauntered into his bedroom, trailing just behind Lassiter.

‘What are you looking so excited about Lassie?’ she asked casually, leaning on the doorframe of his bedroom, watching him hang up his suits.

‘What do you mean?’ he asked, playing innocent.

‘What are you looking so excited about? I can see it written all over your face,’ she walked over to him and looked at his face, stroking a line softly against his cheek as if she was reading something. ‘Right there, see? Size 11 font. Times New Roman. _I’m really excited about something and I’m not telling Shawn because I’m a big meanie._ Huh, how strange. I had you pegged as more of an Old English Text man myself but you’re always full of surprises.’

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about Spencer,’ Lassiter said, maintaining his ignorance.

‘Oh I’m far too good to fall for that,’ she said, teasingly.

He wrapped a hand around her waist, taking advantage of her momentary stroking of his cheek to pull her in a little closer.

‘If this is an attempt to distract me Lassie, I gotta say it’s only like… seventy percent effective.’

‘Is that so?’ he asked lightly, as his hand continued to wander.

‘Maybe eighty percent.’

Shawn indeed found her thoughts straying a little. Her hand was still on his cheek, lingering intimately. She liked the feel of his stubble underneath her fingertips. It would have been so easy to replace her fingertips with her lips and give into temptation. But she was like a dog with a bone when it came to getting answers, so she kept pushing.

‘You’re only this happy looking when you’re on a case.’ Shawn said. She faked a little gasp, as if the thought had just occurred to her, and not been on her mind almost non-stop for the past three months.

‘Oh! The mysterious case!’

Lassiter closed that final inch of separation between the two of them. His lips brushed her cheek.

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ he murmured into her ear.

But Shawn knew a liar when she saw one.

She looked one in the mirror every day. 

Shawn refused to drop the point. Her mind was whirring. But she’d admit that it started to slow a little when Lassiter started to nuzzle her neck. But her brain was definitely whirring, if a little slower than before. No honestly. Give her a moment. She could work it out. Like an old car that took a few twists of the key in the ignition to jolt into life, it took a few seconds, or probably a little longer before Shawn could use her brain again, despite any, albeit pleasurable, distractions. 

What had been different about today?

Well, nothing really, the only odd thing Shawn had noticed was when Lassiter and Juliet had come to arrest the criminal. Not in how they acted, or what they did but… how they were dressed. Juliet hadn’t been wearing her typical work attire. Her hair was down as well, Shawn had noticed. These days Juliet more frequently favoured a professional and practical up-do for work.

She had to check something.

Shawn reluctantly pulled back from Lassiter and took a step back. She looked at what he was wearing up and down. She took in everything, from the confused expression on his face to the camel buck shoes on his feet.

Wait? Camel Bucks?

‘You’re in your civvies,’ she said, confronting him.

Lassiter looked at his shoes for a long moment, as if this was the first time he had ever seen his feet.

‘No I’m not,’ he eventually countered with.

A strong defence.

‘I know what you’ve been doing. You and Juliet and your secret case. It’s so clear now. I was such an idiot. Always sneaking away for hours on end at weird times. I see how it is,’ Shawn said accusingly.

In a flash Lassiter grabbed her hands and looked into her eyes earnestly.

‘I’m not cheating on you, Spencer.’

‘I know,’ Shawn said coolly. ‘It’s worse. You and Juliet have been going on surveillance without me. And now you get to do something cool and I’m not invited.’

Lassiter’s shoulder slouched, in both relief and defeat.

‘I knew you would find out eventually.’

But he had seemed so disinterested in the case before. Why now did it spark a little interest in him? Why now did he want to look good?

Shawn looked at Lassiter carefully. She met his eyes steadily. She allowed her eyes to roam over the rest of his face. She was searching. He hadn’t shaved for a few days and he was growing a little stubble. That was something unusual for him. But Shawn had put it down to the stresses of the current case they had been working on. A murder involving a young teenager cut down in his prime. But what if it hadn’t been that?

‘Lassiter? Are you going undercover?’

Lassiter looked carefully blank.

Shawn’s face brightened in excitement. She had got it in one.

God she was good.

‘Carlton? Are you going undercover?’ she asked again.

There was something special about the way that Shawn said Carlton. It touched Lassiter deep in his core. It was a primal reaction and evoked a visible hunger in his eyes. No one could say his name like she did. His name was precious when it fell from Shawn’s lips. She joked around and gave him stupid nicknames, referred to him as Lassie with a lazy familiarity. But _Carlton_? That was the name reserved only when they were alone.

Shawn smiled knowingly when she looked at him. She was far from oblivious to the effect she had on him. She slipped her hands from his larger hands, and stepped forward, firmly into Lassiter’s personal bubble.

‘Carlton?’ she asked again.

Lassiter was powerless against the knowing look in Shawn’s eyes. The small smile quirking the sides of her soft lips just pleaded for him to reach down to meet them with his own. She smiled wider as he snaked his arms around her waist once again. He needed her closer to him. She looked up casually and pressed her lips against his. She could read him like a book sometimes. She leaned into his long body and closed the small height difference between them. She allowed herself to enjoy the feel of her body fitting perfectly against his for a long moment before pulling away reluctantly.

‘Let me come with you,’ Shawn asked.

And the moment was over.

Lassiter sighed and rested his head on hers.

‘Fine, you win Shawn. O’Hara and I have been heading up a security team before a big event. And yes, it has involved some surveillance. But it’s an invitation-only event and O’Hara and I have to go undercover so as not to arouse suspicion. There’s no way in hell that you could get your way into an event like this. And there’s even less chance I could help you get in.’

Shawn had finally got the knowledge she had been after for weeks. But it didn’t feel like much of a victory. How deeply unsatisfying it was, knowing that even though gotten the answers she had wanted, she couldn’t tag along with the pair to stick her nose into things as usual.

Shawn’s only saving thought was that, if Lassiter and Juliet had been finding it a chore she probably would find it a chore too. Honestly, running a little surveillance and security for an invitation-only event did not necessarily spark Shawn’s interest. It appeared the most interesting thing about this case had been the ambiguity surrounding it.

But if Shawn had learned anything in her time as a Psychic Detective, it was to never trust out of date yogurt. Oh yes, and that the truth was often more disappointing than what the brain could imagine. Especially when trying to solve a mystery.

Finally, Shawn was willing to drop the issue and press it no further.

She changed the subject by going onto her tip toes and looking over Lassiter’s broad shoulder to where his suit was hung up.

‘Your tie doesn’t match your suit very well Lassie,’ she remarked. ‘You have a silver tie that would suit it far better.

Lassiter smirked. Shawn could feel his lips curving a little on her collarbone.

‘You notice a lot about my clothes Spencer, especially given that I haven’t worn that particular tie in months.’

Shawn reddened somewhat.

‘I notice a lot of things,’ she said defensively.

‘I’ll change it,’ he said, pleased his teasing had an effect on her. 

They broke their embrace for Lassiter to find the more suitable tie.

Tie changed, the pair decided to watch the rest of the movie Shawn had been watching on the television earlier. It was the type of movie filled with violence and epic fight scenes. It was the type of movie where men who wore cloaks had evil twins with plans to take over the world.

For Shawn and Lassiter, their everyday lives held enough excitement and the film failed to win their interest. Instead they enjoyed each other’s company and fell asleep on the couch curled up close to one another.

At some point in the evening Lassiter woke up and encouraged Shawn to go to bed so that she didn’t wake up a series of painful joints. She did so with minimal grumbling.

Both slept soundly. Content in the other’s presence.


	2. Chapter 2

Shawn hated early morning phone calls, but it was part and parcel of working an important job like hers. When she sold smoothies in a beach hut she’d never be called early in the morning, or when she worked as a Segway saleswoman. There was never any massive strawberry picking emergencies that warranted a phone call at the crack of dawn, or any urgent job requiring her services as an auctioneer.

Early morning calls when she worked at the sunglasses kiosk were more common than you would think.

Working as a psychic detective, Shawn took her morning lie-ins when she could get them. This morning was clearly not one of those days.

The early morning phone call woke Shawn and Lassiter up with a start. But this morning it was not Shawn’s phone woke the pair up, it was Lassiter’s cell phone. It was the station calling to report a murder. He would be needed at the scene as soon as possible. Lassiter ended the call with a grunt and rubbed his eyes slowly. His early morning phone calls were as common as Shawn’s. And he enjoyed receiving them just as much as he enjoyed open mic comedy shows.

‘Go back to sleep,’ Lassiter told Shawn drowsily. ‘I’ll leave my keys for you.’

‘No,’ Shawn mumbled, her head still stuffed in the pillow. ‘Can you drop me off at the psych offices?’

‘Sure,’ he said.

Both dressed quickly, and without conversation. Very soon Shawn was at her office and Lassiter was on his way to the scene of whatever murder with minimal fuss. This was not the first time this had happened and it certainly wouldn’t be the last.

At the office Shawn called Gus and prompted him into action too. Gus was already up for work, or at least he was just about to be. But if Shawn was going to be at Psych this early in the morning, it was only fair that Gus was as well.

‘Come on man,’ Shawn groaned into the phone. ‘There’s been a murder. Let’s see if we can get involved!’

‘No, Shawn. I won’t come into the office this morning. I won’t be able to help until after lunch time. I’m swamped right now.’

‘Swamped? You sell pharmaceuticals. What’s got you so swamped? A cure for smallpox?’ she scoffed.

‘Shawn… I hope you’re joking. Smallpox was essentially eradicated in the eighties.’

‘Then why are you so busy?’

‘Shawn, I’m putting my foot down. Look, I want to help too, but there are a few new drugs out on the market, and I have to strike while the iron is hot. Sell, sell, sell. I’ll see you later.’

With that he hung up.

‘Sell, sell, sell,’ Shawn echoed mockingly as she put her cell phone back in her pocket. 

Shawn’s plan to hitch a ride with Gus, and swoop into the station, get some details and crash the crime scene clearly wasn’t going to work as planned.

Plans temporarily scuppered Shawn twiddled her thumbs for a while, then resolved to make some breakfast. And by making breakfast she meant steal Gus’ leftovers from the fridge.

Gus was a very good cook, and even his leftovers were scrumptious. And as Shawn shoved a forkful of pasta in her mouth she reflected that she should make him cook for her more often. Well, maybe he would cook for her more often if she stopped stealing his left overs. It was really six of one half a dozen of the other.

Having finished what remained of Gus’ leftover lunch, a pasta dish that undoubtedly would have a fancy Italian name and overpriced ingredients, Shawn decided to be thorough as also finish the rest of Gus’ pizza too. Just for continuity. Then, still more bored than hungry, she decided to pour a bowl of cereal and watch a little television to keep her entertained.

There was a news story on that Shawn half listened to whilst eating cereal and scrolling through her phone. She wasn’t fully paying attention but her ears picked up a few keywords here and there.

‘Cops on the scene since 6am… SBPD…Suspicious death… High Profile…’

Shawn brought her cereal over to her desk and turned up the television volume. It certainly had grabbed her interest now.

The news reporter was reporting the death of Victor Fabrik the famous business tycoon.

Shawn wasn’t too sure what being a famous business tycoon involved, perhaps something with battleships, though that didn’t seem right. But whatever it was, Victor Fabrik was a well-known figure in Santa Barbara, heck the whole state of California.

Today had been the day of his wedding. And the event was more than well documented. Shawn flicked briefly through the other channels, to see the other news reports. All showed neatly dressed reporters outside of the same house.

Shawn scanned the scene behind the current reporter on whatever channel she had switched to. She caught a glimpse of familiar blonde hair, Juliet.

Before her eyes, the pieces slid smoothly into place.

This was the case Lassiter had been telling her about last night.

This was a high profile wedding. It had been on the cover of every glossy magazine for weeks. Gossip columns and even social media were going mad. This wedding was inescapable and news of it had been everywhere. Shawn now understood why there was already so much good coverage of the scene of the death. The media had probably been camping outside the house for days with the intention of reporting a wedding.

But a murder was always much more exciting.

If the SBPD had been put on a security detail only to let one of their charges die, they were in for one hell of a time. Shawn was suddenly glad that she wasn’t part of that case now. She just knew Chief Vick would be so tightly wound that she could potentially spin off into orbit at any second. Not to mention that with such a high profile murder like this Shawn just knew that Vick wouldn’t be the highest authority Lassiter and Juliet would have to answer to. She groaned and turned off the television. She had a sour taste in her mouth that could only be partially attributed to the out of date milk she had used in her cereal.

Shawn felt bad for the Lassiter and Juliet. They were not in a good situation. This was going to be a case with a mammoth amount of interfering from higher-ups. Not to mention the media circus that was already forming. She knew that Lassiter would be in a terrible mood when he came home from work. Not that they had planned to meet that evening, and Shawn didn’t want to assume that she could just come over to Lassiter’s house whenever she felt like it.

She used to do that, come over to Lassiter’s house whenever she felt like it, even if he wasn’t there. Or should she say, especially when he wasn’t there. Almost exclusively when he wasn’t there would have been yet more accurate. She would rearrange his fruit bowl, delete things from his DVR, or stick googly eyes on his toothbrush. She’d eat all his chips and replace switch his sugar and salt, rifle through his drawers and generally try to be a pain in his ass. But now that they were something more than sometime enemies and reluctant co-workers, the thought made Shawn a little nervous and itchy.

They were getting dangerously close to having a label.

She didn’t like being tied down like that.

Shawn finished her cereal and turned the television on once again, but turned the channel over onto brighter things, opting to watch some mind-numbing cartoons to kill some time.

In the early afternoon, Gus finally came into the office, loosening his tie and trailing his pharmaceutical cart behind him slowly.

‘Ok Shawn, I finished my rounds early today. You said there was a murder, so I busted my ass to get my rounds done in record time. I’m parked outside, let’s get to the station. We can check out as many cases as you’d like.’

Shawn spun around in her chair to face him and yawned.

‘Eh,’ she said.

‘Eh?’ Gus repeated dumbly.

‘I don’t know man. That case I thought was so interesting earlier is looking like it’ll be more hassle than it’s worth. And I don’t fancy getting into that one. Too much red tape.’ 

Gus frowned, ‘are you out of your damn mind Shawn? I had to rewrite my entire advertising presentations to cut time. I left out some of my best material just to make sure I could get here as early as possible. I’m pretty sure I broke office records for sales per hour just trying to finish up to get over here.’

‘Want to go to the beach instead?’ Shawn said with a grin.

Gus huffed and puffed for a long moment but ultimately he had little investment in a murder he knew nothing about. But he had a lot of investment in the beach. He offered no opposition.

‘Well,’ he said slowly. ‘I suppose I do deserve a beach break after all my hard work this morning.’

‘You bet you do buddy,’ Shawn said agreeably. ‘You helped cure smallpox.’

‘I don’t think you’re fully grasping the history of smallpox here, Shawn.’

The ongoing lecture continued all the way to the beach but when they lay on their respective towels, relaxed and drinking orange juice in long glasses relaxation overtook them. They were content to lie in silence and catch some sun.

Even with her eyes closed Shawn could see when a dark shadow fell over her face.

‘I wonder if a cloud has come to warn me of a future thunderstorm,’ Shawn pondered aloud. She covered her eyes a little with her hand and opened her eyes slowly.

‘What do ya know? I was right,’ she said. ‘Definitely a storm coming.’

It was her father complete with his usual cloudy expression.

‘What the hell are the pair of you doing out here, looking like you’ve got nothing better to do?’ Henry Spencer said sternly.

‘We don’t have anything better to do,’ Shawn countered.

‘I don’t think you believe that for a minute Shawn,’ Henry grumbled. ‘I let myself into your office to leave back that DVD I borrowed only to find the office phone ringing, your cell phone ringing and Gus’ cell phone ringing.’

‘That’s can’t be right,’ Gus said. ‘My cell phone is right here.’

He reached in his pants pocket, only to find his cell phone wasn’t there.

Gus sat up and glared at Shawn.

‘Did you pick my pocket again Shawn? Are you serious right now?’

Shawn looked innocent, ‘but we weren’t expecting any calls.’

‘It doesn’t matter if you weren’t expecting any calls Shawn, because you’ve gotten them,’ Henry said. ‘I answered your office phone on your behalf. You’re welcome by the way. It was Chief Vick. I expect you know what this is about.’

Shawn groaned. She had gone to the effort of purposefully drawing Gus from the office to avoid this very scenario.

Henry wasn’t amused by her groaning. ‘Just go Shawn. I wrote down the address of the crime scene.’

He dropped the dropped the post-it note he had scribbled on onto the towel beside her and walked away grumbling. It didn’t take much from Shawn to rile her father.

Shawn grabbed the post-it and crumpled it in her hand. She turned face down, let out a small supressed scream into her towel then sat up.

Gus was looking at her with an amused expression. He sipped at his orange juice and said nothing.

‘I know, I know,’ she said. ‘Let’s go.’

They left the beach.

Fun-time was over and it was time to get to work.


	3. Chapter 3

Shawn and Gus arrived at the address Henry had given them in relatively good time having found that much of their journey was relatively low-traffic once they were out of the city bustle.

The scene of the crime was in the part of Santa Barbara clearly reserved for the upper classes. Even the streets looked nicer. There was none of the typical city sights of posters plastered on walls and telephone poles, overflowing garbage bags left out on sidewalks, people loitering idly with paper coffee cups in their hands. There were no cars parked at the side of the road, which was a truly uncommon sight. Of course there was no need for cars to be parked at the side of the road when the people who lived here had their own private parking garages.

With no cars around the streets looked wider, and tidier. As Shawn and Gus drove closer to their destination and further from the city, the houses themselves grew larger and became increasingly spaced apart. With their high hedges, fences and trees to ensure the illusion that they had no neighbours Shawn could tell this was an area where people had security controlled gates and security teams to maintain that they lived in perfect privacy.

It was hard to believe that this was somewhere so near to the city that Shawn and Gus knew so well. Massive houses with private complexes, multiple swimming pools, stables, tennis courts and probably even a helicopter pad or two, reigned supreme.

Even Gus, so vehemently proud of his little Blueberry, was feeling a little conscious. Hell, his Toyota Echo paled in comparison to some of the golf carts Shawn could see driving past one of the private golf courses.

Gus, who was driving, had found it easy to know which estate was their intended destination. It was the one with the dozens of camera crews and thirsty paparazzi outside. They could hear the noise of the media even before the house came into view. It was the noise of a crowed desperate for the latest news to sink their teeth into.

Upon approaching the estate, or rather the estate’s gates Gus fought his way through the crowd at a glacial pace. The media weren’t there to be distracted by a little thing like moving out of the way of traffic. It took what felt like forever to move through the crowd.

When they had fought to the gates, they were met by a woman in a security jacket and a pair of dark sunglasses. She gestured for Gus to lower the window a little, which he did. She passed him a clipboard on which it was required he was to state his business. It said in capital letters at the top of the page not to announce their business out loud, lest the media learn more than they needed to. Gus took the clipboard, scribbled hurriedly and handed it back to her. The security guard looked at it for a long moment the murmured something into the walkie-talkie clipped to her shoulder. Shawn couldn’t hear what she had said due to the noise of the crowd but a blipping noise followed by a tinny, static response seemed to be enough for the security guard. She nodded her head and walked back to the security office. A little moment later the gates began to open.

The media revelled in frantic delight at the opportunity to get a peek inside the gates of the estate. Cameras flashed blindingly and reporters and cameramen, suddenly interested in the car who managed to attain access to the estate, knocked the windows of Gus’s car, desperate to find out who they were and what their business was on the property.

‘They’re like animals,’ muttered Gus under his breath.

‘Man, I’ve seen less frenzied people in zombie flicks,’ Shawn agreed. ‘Don’t let them infect you buddy. Keep your window rolled all the way up.’

‘Why would I roll down my window in a zombie apocalypse Shawn?’ Gus asked, offended.

‘I don’t know, maybe your car is making you claustrophobic?’

‘The only thing making me claustrophobic is this crowd. This is a madhouse.’

Gus had to go at a snail’s pace due to the fact that the fear of getting hit by a car was still a secondary issue compared to the potential exaltation of securing a juicy photo of the family mansion. But they eventually managed to drive onwards.

The gates now behind them, Gus’ car drove quickly to the resplendent mansion before them. He parked beside a cop car. Climbing out of the car Gus and Shawn took a second to breathe, free from the crushing feeling of being in that crowd. Despite being in a car, it was a claustrophobic feeling. More relaxed, the pair climbed the stone steps and walked through the gilt double doors into the rococo grandeur of an entryway that was easily triple the size of Shawn’s apartment.

They were quickly met by Buzz who, with a worried smile, led them to the Chief.

Chief Vick looked stressed, strained and generally harassed.

Shawn looked at her watch. It was 1pm.

It was going to be _that kind_ of a case then.

‘Miss Spencer, Mr Gustor, with me please,’ she said, already walking to the next place she was invariably required.

‘I don’t have a lot of time, so I’m going to fill you in as quickly as I can. I assume you have heard by now about the murder of Victor Fabrik.’

‘The famous business torpedo,’ Shawn said knowledgably, falling into stride with the chief.

‘Tycoon,’ Gus corrected.

‘That’s a type of spear, Gus.’

‘No Shawn, you’re thinking of a harpoon.’

‘A harpoon is a tropical storm silly goose.’

‘That’s a typhoon, Shawn.’

‘A typhoon? I thought a typhoon was-‘

‘Enough,’ said the Chief firmly, halting her quick gait to a firm stop, leaving the squabbling pair to continue walking for a brief second. They had to stop and turn to face her. Karen Vick’s stony face reduced Shawn and Gus to three feet tall.

‘This is not the time or the place for any… shenanigans or any _;_ I mean _any_ of your usual antics. Do I make myself completely clear?’

The pair nodded mutely.

‘Good,’ she said firmly. She put her hands on her hips. ‘Victor Fabrik was a high profile business man. He was most famous for his numerous companies which he ran all over the world. In addition to this he had vast successes on Wall Street and on the stock market. He was a very wealthy man. He died just moments before the car was to come to pick him up to make his way to the church. Today was his wedding day.’

She thrust out the file she was holding in her hand for the chastened pair to look at.

‘His fiancé, the equally as successful and accomplished, Grant LaFleur was waiting for him at the altar when he heard the news.’

There was a photo of the man, black and in his mid-thirties. Shawn now knew him to be Grant LaFleur smiling back from the file and she felt a pang of pity in her heart. There were certain events that death wasn’t meant to tarnish. There felt something reprehensible about a murder on a wedding day. It was as if someone had broken a rule on a cosmic level. If one believed the hype, weddings were supposed to be the happiest day of people’s lives. It hurt Shawn that this poor couple were never even got to proclaim the words of their marital bond before the ‘til death do us part’ bit came true.

She frowned as she flicked through the pages to come to the image of a smiling man in a well-fitted suit shaking the hand of someone Shawn thought she had seen once on television. Victor Fabrik was handsome and oozing confidence. His black hair, smooth and shiny, strong cheekbones and broad shoulders made him look like a model fresh off the runway.

‘Ugh look at him. Those genes are unfair. Plus he’s rich? Man, some people get all the luck,’ Shawn lamented to Gus.

‘Shawn, this man was murdered. On his wedding day. I wouldn’t exactly call that luck,’ Gus replied.

‘Enough,’ Chief Vick said. ‘Come this way please.’

The Chief waved them on a little to the destination she had previously been directing them to, before they needed chiding like rowdy toddlers.

‘All the family and all the staff have been gathered. Ms Spencer, if you would like a chance to see the body or talk to anyone around the scene, you will have your chance. Until then you’ll need to wait in here until there’s enough to confirm this wasn’t a suicide,’ Chief Vick said as she guided them to the large hallway before them.

Shawn had thought that the massive entryway would have sufficed the quota of Big Ass Rooms That Only Served As A Segue Between Other Rooms, but not in this mansion. The hallway they had just entered was of comparable size to the entryway. But it was more opulent than the empty, clean and functional entryway. The hallway had impossibly high ceilings contained a multitude of artworks on its walls, and an array of fine sculptures on plinths at careful intervals. Its carpets were thick and plush, in an unblemished cream colour. Shawn wished she had taken the time to wipe her shoes before she had entered the house. It wasn’t so unblemished now.

The Chief ushered Shawn and Gus into the room where the cops and other detectives were milling around. There was already a small amount of nervous looking staff, around a dozen or so, in crisp clean uniforms, hanging around in the room looking uncomfortable. Many of them were dabbing their eyes, blowing their noses into tissues and crying audibly.

Shawn didn’t know how many members of staff were required to run a house approximately the size of an airplane hangar. But it was probably a hell of a lot more than twelve. After all, this was wealth on a whole other scale. Of all the things to skimp out on, people to help keep the place running, was a strange one. Shawn took a careful mental note of that. Something about that just didn’t sit right.

‘I’ll return in a minute,’ Vick told the pair. ‘I’m waiting to hear from the coroner and medical examiner what the verdict is on this case. Until it’s officially declared murder we can’t do anything too drastic. Until then we still need to round up a few more of the family members.’

And with that the Chief left the room, closing the door softly behind her.

Shawn and Gus made their way over to where the cops were standing around, waiting impatiently. There was a table with glasses and jugs of freshly made orange juice. There was tea and coffee to boot. The table was also laden with fresh fruits, glass bottles of water and some other snacks. Shawn helped herself to an array of fruit and a bottle of water. It would be rude not to, surely.

Gus rolled his eyes at her, but when he saw some mini fruit kebabs drizzled artfully in yogurt and pineapple slices made into the shape of flowers he decided to pick up a plate and do the same.

As they were eating Shawn eyed up the scene. Firstly, there was no Lassiter and no Juliet to be seen. So they had to still be in the room with the victim. Secondly, whilst it was tempting to sneak out of the room and look around, Shawn couldn’t dream to sneak past the house security unnoticed. After all, there were probably security cameras everywhere and she was in a room full of cops. And she had noticed the security hut as she and Gus had drove onto the property. So until the Chief and the detectives came into the room and allowed her clearance she and Gus were stuck in the beautifully decorated room with a whole table of scrumptious delights.

How terrible for her.

In addition to the cops and the estate staff, there were a few other people in the room wearing clothes that wouldn’t have looked out of place at a wedding. Shawn had presumed them to be family members of either the recently bereaved fiancé Grant, or the late Victor.

Shawn had a pretty good grasp already on who she thought was who. There was an older man, with bloodshot eyes and trembling hands who Shawn knew with confidence to be the father of the deceased. He was in a wedding tuxedo with a colourful boutonnière on his lapel. His grey hair, which Shawn assumed had once looked neat, now looked dishevelled as if he had been running his hands through it. It was a habit of his, Shawn could tell, and in his distressed state, he couldn’t give a damn what he looked like. He was deadpan and waxen-faced. Shawn saw from his slow steps that he had been drinking. Heavily. He looked as lifeless as Shawn knew she would find his son. A dead man walking.

Sitting on a fine leather Chesterfield armchair, perched at the very edge of the seat, like a nervous bird, sat the trembling mother of the deceased. Her eyes were puffy from the crying, and the whole front of her silk dress was stained from tears. She was a small woman in her mid to late fifties, possibly even into her early sixties. She looked perhaps a decade younger than her husband.

The door opened and in walked a younger man. When the mother of the late Victor Fabrik looked up to see who had entered the room, she burst into tears again.

In had walked the recently bereaved fiancé, Grant LaFleur. His face was emotionless but his eyes bore a heavy redness. It was all too clear he had been crying. He came in and sat on the couch not bothering to talk to anyone for a moment, deep in his own thoughts and obviously wishing to be left alone. But hearing the sobs of his never-to-be mother-in-law he looked to his left, and seeing the grieving mother he stood up and walked over to her. She too stood up, and clung to him like he was the only life raft in a storm. She was sobbing hysterically and her husband blanched, clearly in pain too, completely unable to help her.

Was it the sight of seeing her son’s never to be husband dressed in a fine tuxedo that had set her off? Or was it the sudden memory that her only son was dead?

Shawn didn’t know… or care.

She felt very uncomfortable. She wasn’t meant to be here or to see these things. This was too intimate, too personal for her. 

She looked away.

Other family members trickled in, and she heard a couple of cops behind her introduce them to another cop. There was Victor’s older sister and younger brother, who both gave Grant a hug and a comforting word. Another man, who bore no family resemblance shook his hand and also gave him a hug.

Next entered Grant’s younger siblings, identical twin sisters in their late twenties. Both sisters were on their respective phones, heads glued to whatever was on their screens. Both were in designer dresses and the highest heels Shawn had ever seen in her life. Both had supermodel good looks and bodies. Both had intricately braided hair with gold beads and gold threaded throughout. They looked flawless but distant from what was happening around them. Neither sister was crying.

Interesting.

Shawn could see that Grant and his sisters bore many similarities. All had dark, intense eyes, so brown they were almost black. They shared a dark complexion, warm brown flawless skin and black hair. Where his sister’s hair were both so long their braids reached their lower back, Grant’s hair was a short buzzcut, stylish but practical. But Shawn could tell they were related.

The last family member to enter the room took everyone’s breath away. Shawn found that she stopped eating momentarily just to watch the woman enter the room. She held a commanding presence, attracting all the attention in the room without saying a single word. Shawn could have walked into a room naked and covered in maple syrup and still failed to have elicited the same reaction.

It was Grant’s mother. Cecelia LaFluer. Billionaire socialite, fashion icon and owner of the LaFleur Company and Enterprises.

Shawn had seen her on the television countless times, and she had grown up seeing Cecelia’s face in magazines where she was usually wearing something skimpy or doing rich people things like climbing into limousines, sitting front row in fashion week or drinking champagne on a private yacht. In person, the woman was beautiful. Her skin was a deep brown. Her dress was a gown that so simple and lovely that it could only have been the finest of designer wear and undoubtedly extravagantly expensive. She held her cell phone in her hand due to her lack of pockets in her gown, the one very human element of this seemingly ethereal woman. She held an undoubtedly designer miniscule handbag in her other arm. Its sheer vicinity towards the woman made it look even more expensive. 

Although she had been crying, her make-up remained undisturbed. Smokey eyes, carefully crafted in charcoals and golds, her make-up was pristine. Her full, pouting lips were painted in resplendent rouge.

Although Cecelia had to have been pushing her late fifties, she certainly didn’t even look anywhere close. But that was a secret between her and her cosmetic surgeon. Either that or she had taken the idea of black don’t crack to heart.

Shawn thought that Cecelia LaFleur would have shared the beautiful eyes, dark as smoke that her children did, but hers were a light green, almost ethereal looking. Obviously her children’s deep dark eyes were something that they had inherited from their father. The father, if Shawn recalled correctly, had passed away many years ago. So they had inherited his beautiful eyes and probably millions of dollars. Seemed unfair, didn’t it?

Shawn looked around the room again, now that it seemed all the family were in attendance. The only thing that aroused Shawn’s interest was a number of small pictures hanging near the food table. All showed the mother, the two sisters and the son. The mother looked perfect but progressively a little different in each photo. In one photo, a fuller lip, in another perkier bust, a thinner waist, a smoother forehead, it went on. At least that was one mystery solved.

‘Pick your tongue up off the floor there lover boy,’ Shawn murmured to Gus, who had been ogling not only Cecelia LaFleur, but her daughters too.

‘Urglh’ Gus managed eloquently.

She huffed a disapproving breath and shoved a mini fruit kebab in her mouth.

Soon thereafter Chief Vick came into the room accompanied by Detectives O’Hara and Lassiter. It was a cold dose of reality. Shawn found she was being drawn down, from the clouds of grandeur, surrounded by the rich and famous, and back to earth.

‘I thank you all for your patience. I know this is not an easy time for you,’ Chief Vick said, talking to the staff and family. ‘In regards to this incident, the coroner and the medical examiner have deemed the death of Victor Fabrik to be a homicide and a formal investigation will be launched. We will need to question you all to get an accurate timeline of events and so we would like you all to stay in town until further notice. I thank you for your continued assistance. If you have any questions, we will be happy to help.’ 

So it really was murder.

Shawn was definitely back down to earth now.


	4. Chapter 4

The knowledge Victor’s death had been murder, and not an accident, seeped through the room insidiously. It was a heavy suffocating cloud. There was no collective shocked gasp or people fainting dramatically. The room just grew weighty in silence as everyone took in the news.

Victor’s father, with his shaking hands, didn’t attempt to conceal the long swig he took from the hipflask he had drawn from his pocket. He wiped his eyes and stared at the wall for a long time, a grown man, broken.

Beside him, his wife, who had already been trembling like an injured bird, surrounded by a nest of tear soaked tissues, had ceased to breathe for a long moment. When the she finally remembered to exhale a breath it was ragged and too loud in the silence which had fallen in the room. It was a rattling, shuddering sob.

Shawn realised with sudden clarity that she hated being around the family when involved in a case. It was messy, it was a hassle and it was uncomfortable. She felt like she was in a very wrong place. She shouldn’t be allowed here. There was something profoundly perverse about experiencing such a scene, a strangers mourning, and their trauma.

Shawn peeked to Lassiter, wishing to look anywhere else than the family. She had a newfound respect for an aspect of Lassiter’s job she often forgot about. He didn’t notice. She was glad.

‘With me Ms Spencer, Mr Gustor,’ Chief Vick said softly, preparing to leave the room.

Shawn and Gus were both eager to leave the oppressive gloom that had settled down in the room. They slipped out of the doorway, behind the Chief easily. They approached the scene of the crime. It was a large hall which held a chandelier, a vast marble floor and a mammoth grand staircase. It was fanciest flight of stairs Shawn had ever seen. She could imagine Cate Blanchett traipsing around the room in a period gown; even the staircase was reminiscent of that on the Titanic.

The hall was brightly illuminated even without the chandelier lit, through the many large windows in the hall. There were masses of floral arrangements around the room, even more art, and of course, a dead body.

The body of Victor Fabrik was just being zipped up into the black body bag as Shawn, Gus and the Chief approached. When the attendant zipping up the body bag saw them coming, he paused, allowing them access to the body.

Victor lay at the bottom of the grand staircase. Shawn could tell from the blood pooled at the foot of the stairs that was where he had died. She tried hard not to let her perceptive vision focus on aspects of the body that tied Victor to the family in the room she and Gus had just left. She tried to not let her eyes linger on the fresh boutonniere on the man’s lapel. It was a single peony. She tried not to think of the identical flower in the other room, tucked neatly in the lapel in his never-to-be groom. Shawn tried not to think of the meaning behind the flowers. Peonies. Honor. Love in all forms. Wealth and prosperity.

A happy marriage.

Though try all she might, Shawn could still imagine the couple picking the flowers out. They were intelligent, thorough, people who undoubtedly had been given the very pinnacle of expensive educations. They would have known the meaning behind those flowers. The symbolism of a peony.

In a scene like this, a room filled to the brim with visual details for Shawn to absorb, it was often like a flood of information. Attempting to not notice things, trying to divert her attention elsewhere was often as effective as a single sandbag against a sudden crashing wave. 

Shawn didn’t want to focus on the blood, which covered Victor’s head. It told her that he hadn’t put his arms out to break his fall. His body was in bad shape. Even in the almost zipped up body bag, Shawn could see his bones sitting at unnatural angles. Was he dead before he went down the stairs? Did he fall? Was he pushed?

After what felt like an eternity Shawn nodded that she was done, and the body bag was finally zipped and carried carefully away. Shawn looked at the stairs quickly perceiving Victor’s route down the stairs. He fell from the top of the grand staircase. He had hit his head on the unforgiving marble steps. He had been knocked unconscious and rolled down the rest of the stairs the entirety of the way down. The fall caused broken bones and bruised skin. The blow to the head caused his death. There was too much blood at the foot of the stairs to have come from a dead man so Shawn hoped for Victor’s sake that he died quickly. She suspected he didn’t.

That was not a pleasant way to go.

Shawn expected Victor had been pushed. After all, a customary glance over his body had showed Shawn that there was no bullet marks, weapon marks or anything else that could have proved fatal. If there were any injuries however, they could have been hidden by the broken bones and bruising sustained in the fall. Looking up the stairs, Shawn could see that Victor was too far from the side of the stairs to have been holding the gilded bannister when he fell. He wouldn’t have been able to stop the fall easily. Only the autopsy and further forensic examination of the body, most likely by the SBPD Coroner, Woody, would be able to tell.

Instead Shawn opted to look around a little more. But her look around the crime scene was perfunctory. She knew there was little it would reveal. There was a hair on the floor, long and black, but it was far enough away that it could have come from anyone at any time. She watched it get bagged by a woman in a white suit for evidence anyway. Shawn knew that the only important evidence to be found from the crime scene would be found on the body. There wasn’t much to be revealed here. Whoever it was, had been careful.

Shawn found her interest lay elsewhere.

Namely, Victor’s room.

With both grooms in the house at the same time Shawn had wondered if they had forewent the superstition about the couple not meeting before the wedding, but it seemed they had not. Grant had stayed in his usual bedroom and Victor had stayed in a guest room during his stay in the mansion. Although to call it a guest room would be a little inaccurate. This was a guest suite. The whole thing was bigger than the damn psych offices and Shawn’s apartment combined.

Victor’s guest suite was large and impersonal. There were signs that someone had been staying there, but not for long, perhaps only a day or two. The bedroom showed the most signs of being lived in, so Shawn started looking in there.

Looking though drawers there was little of much interest, a change of clothes or two, all designer and impeccably crafted. There was both an empty suitcase and a filled suitcase. The first was an empty suitcase that had once held the clothes which were in the drawers and wardrobe and the toiletries in the bathroom. The second was a suitcase that had been evidently packed for the honeymoon. The suitcase held nothing too interesting, clothes, shoes and some necessities. It looked like it hadn’t been opened since it had been in the mansion. It certainly hadn’t been tampered with or rifled through. That was until Shawn curious rifling at least. The bed had its covers in place, whoever had slept there, _Victor_ , Shawn mentally corrected, had tidied the bed that morning but it had not yet been tided and remade by the maid.

Shawn assumed they had a maid come in every morning.

She had seen Cecelia LaFleur and her daughter’s nails, long and impractical. There was no way any of them would be picking up a feather duster. They definitely had a maid. Shawn had seen the staff earlier so she mentally filed though them to see which one seemed like the best candidate to have been the maid, and made a mental note to question her later.

With little interest in what else remained in the room Shawn took the opportunity to do what she liked to do best, cause a little chaos. She climbed onto the bed and began bouncing before Gus had time to fully realise what she was about to do.

‘What the hell Shawn?’ Gus asked with shock.

‘Man,’ Shawn replied in between jumps, ‘this bed is better than a trampoline. It’s so springy.’

She pulled a reluctant Gus up, using the momentum from her own jumps to force Gus into joining in with her antics.

Soon, the pair were giggling like little kids. Gus even managed to nearly reach the ceiling with his last jump, when Shawn admitted defeat and jumped back down the floor. She was a little out of breath from the exertion.

‘Did you see that Shawn?’ Gus asked as he too climbed down from the plush bed. ‘I almost touched the ceiling!’

‘Yeah,’ Shawn remarked casually. ‘There’s a little cherub up there and you almost touched its butt.’

‘I wasn’t aiming for its butt, Shawn. It just happened to be in my direct area.’

‘Well, keep your hands from my direct area, butt toucher.’

‘What?’ Gus asked both in incredulously and disgustedly. ‘As if I’d want to touch your butt, Shawn. And what kind of insult is Butt –Toucher anyway. Are you in the second grade?’

Shawn felt at ease once again. Away from the mourning family, and the gross reality of the murder, Shawn could mess around, and relax, and work as she often did, in her own eccentric and unorthodox way.

Gus, who was now bustling around, like a preening peacock who had just been mocked by the peahen, moved Shawn aside, so he could remake the bed they had mussed up during their shenanigans. He pulled the plush duvet cover back to its original position and re-fluffed the pillows. When he picked up the second pillow, he found something interesting.

‘Look at this Shawn,’ he said, picking up a small folded note.

‘What’s this?’ Shawn asked curiously.

Gus held the piece of paper to Shawn, who opened it up.

It was Victor’s wedding vows, written in a neat penmanship, in black ink, most likely from a fountain pen. It was short and sappy, a promise of love eternal and all the extras in between. It was earnest and genuine and completely filled with love. Shawn didn’t want to imagine the scene at the church when Victor would have reached into his pocket only to realise he had forgotten his vows back at Grant’s familial home. Perhaps there would have been good-hearted laughter in the altars and the customary patting down pockets to ensure no one else had it, then Victor would have said it anyway perfectly, word for word, because Shawn could see from this small note in her hands that Victor had written his vows perfectly the first time round and that he had carried that note around in his pocket every day since he had written it.

The thinning of the paper at the folds and the curling of the edges showed Shawn how often he looked at the pages, how a little oil on the page showed her Victor often he allowed his fingers to linger on specific words. _Love. Joy. Forever._

He had slept with the note under his pillow. He was eager to say those words. He couldn’t wait to tell the whole world those words. He was so excited to share those words, his feelings with his fiancé, Grant. The words that he had only written once and had gotten right perfectly the moment he put pen to paper.

Shawn placed the note back down onto the pillow so that Juliet and Lassie could pick it up as evidence.

‘It’s Victor’s wedding vows,’ she told Gus, as if that could have accurately explained the depth of love that little note had held. It was like calling the Empire State Building an office block.

Despite Shawn musings, something sat wrong in her mind.

‘There was no way that a man conscientious enough to unpack his overnight bag and put specific clothing in the appropriate drawers would forget his wedding vows on the day of his wedding,’ Shawn said.

‘I don’t know about that. It could have been overlooked in a fit of nerves,’ Gus countered.

Shawn hummed in acquiescence but wasn’t convinced. But her next find, just before they left the guest suite only served to convince her further otherwise.

It was Victor’s cell phone.

The phone was sitting at the little side table beside the full length mirror in the living area of the suite. It was almost completely hidden underneath the heavy floral arrangement the table held. It was as if someone walked over to the mirror to check their reflection and put down their phone momentarily to fix something out of place. Only to never pick it up again.

Shawn almost missed it and she was almost sure that the police had too during their initial sweep of the place. Shawn pointed to it with an ‘ _I told you so’_ face. Gus came over to see what Shawn was pointing at with a self-satisfied smirk. His face turned dark.

Shawn had been right again.

Gus hated it when Shawn’s little theories were proved right. Especially when it defied what common sense presented.

Gus groused a little as Shawn looked around the phone, and the small table it was kept on. She was a woman on a mission. She could picture the scene unfolding in front of her, in her mind. It wasn’t quite clear yet, not enough pieces of the puzzle to see the full picture. But certain formative parts, the corner pieces of the jigsaw, and the little pieces with flat edges that gave you a frame to fill in, were starting to be created within Shawn’s mind.

She looked around the room once more briefly before she left, Gus trailed behind.

‘What are you doing Shawn?’ Where are we going?’ he asked.

Shawn mumbled something absently. But her mind was elsewhere. She was looking for something. Something specific. Shawn was like a bloodhound on the trail of a scent. Absorbed in whatever she was looking for.

Shawn looked around the hall she and Gus had just entered intently but she could not find what she was looking for. She frowned with frustration and narrowed her eyes. She knew she was on the right track. She just needed some proof.

‘Bingo,’ Shawn said, delightedly.

Her eyes had zoomed in on something that could prove her theory was correct. It was a speck of fern near the staircase. Not near the banister but near the middle of the stairs. Shawn had missed it before because it blended in with the plush, rich green carpet that covered the floor of the upstairs hallway.

Everything in this house was rich except Shawn, Gus and the remaining detectives.

Shawn dropped to her knees and began crawling on the ground in an attempt to explore the area. She pulled a very reluctant Gus down to her level to show him what she had seen. Gus was unimpressed.

Undeterred, Shawn then crawled up the floor looking for more clues. She only managed a few more feet before her hands moved from plush carpet to the cool marble of the stairs. Shawn turned back to the small remnant of fern she had found moments before.

It was a sprig of the fern from Victor’s boutonnière. Shawn recalled the fine peony had been accompanied by a few fern leaves. But the fern speck was _just_ that little bit too far away from the edge of the staircase for it to have fallen off his lapel when he fell down the stairs. But it was close enough to have preceded it, perhaps in a small scuffle before he was pushed.

Shawn continued to crawl about the floor but Gus stood up and straightened his shirt.

‘I’m not crawling about the floor for a bit of leaf, Shawn. I don’t want to mess up my good shoes, these are designer.’

‘Designer huh,’ Shawn said lightly.

Shawn knew that if Gus wasn’t still dating Kim he would have set his sights on the LaFleur sisters, the two beautiful young women she had seen in the room where the family still were waiting. Beautiful twins were a weakness of Gus’. Shawn knew his vanity about his appearance was most likely in case he ran into them again. But even with his designer shoes, carefully pressed shirt and perfect skin, the LaFleur twins were so far out of his league they didn’t even notice Gus was part of the game.

Shawn crawled back to the sprig of fern and looked around. There was a fine table and an expensive mirror, perfect for checking ones appearance before climbing downstairs. If there had been a struggle there should have been scratches or signs that the table had been moved. The plush carpet was unforgiving and would have shown every minute movement of the table but there was no movement, nor any signs of disturbances on the carpet. Her inspection of the table also belied no blood or hair. And the only imperfection to be found was a single series of scratches on the top of the table, small and insignificant, and could be attributed to the picking up and putting down of objects over the years. Any significant scratches would have happened on the table legs or the sides if there had been a struggle. And it really didn’t make much sense for Victor to have checked his appearance in the mirror out here, when he had a larger mirror in his own room. Especially when Shawn knew that he had already taken the opportunity to check his appearance in the mirror in the guest suite. Shawn was disappointed but not disheartened. She knew she had a theory now.

Shawn heard the sound of someone clearing their throat behind her. She turned around to see the chief and the two detectives looking at Shawn.

Shawn suddenly became aware that she was kneeling on her hands and knees in the house of a very rich and recently bereaved stranger. Chief Vick’s expression told Shawn that she better give her some information, and fast. Shawn did what she did best. She put her hand to her temple and started to bullshit quickly.

Shawn, fell to the ground like a floundering fish, then sat back to an upright position, holding a hand out pathetically to the nearby Detective O’Hara who grabbed Shawn’s hand and pulled her up.

‘Thank you, Jules. The spirits are reticent today but they have told me enough. With me please,’ Shawn said as guided the party to the guest bedroom she and Gus had just left.

‘This is the first place I have been psychically guided to,’ Shawn said.

‘This is the guest suite that Victor Fabrik stayed in in the days leading up to his death,’ O’Hara supplied helpfully.

‘Victor has a powerful aura. It’s easy to trace his movements. Come with me again,’ Shawn said, guiding the group easily through the room, as if she was a tour guide. ‘Victor wakes in the morning, eats some food, has a shower, styles his hair. He reads the newspaper in an effort to distract himself but he is too excited and nervous with anticipation so he dresses. Once he puts on his shoes he takes a look at himself in the mirror. But it is from there that he is distracted by a mysterious assailant who lures him out of his room. There is a knock and he answers it. He is dragged down the hall to where this table is,’ Shawn ran out of the room engaged in a pretend struggle with an invisible assailant. She stopped at the table, where she had found the sprig just moment ago.

‘This area here is the apex of the struggle. Here is where Victor was finally overpowered and thrown down the stairs.’

Shawn mimed her assault as she told the group her current theory and as it reached the end she stopped right before the stairs, as if someone had suddenly pressed ‘pause’ on a TV. She turned slowly, eager to see the reactions of her associates.

Chief Vick seems sceptical; she looked at the distance from the room to the stairs. It was a good thirty feet apart.

‘It would have to be a pretty strong assailant to get Mr Fabrik all the way over here and throw him down the stairs without any signs of a struggle. And they’d have to be quick about it too. This mansion was full of people.’

‘There may be a lot of people in the mansion but the wedding party was separated by family,’ Juliet O’Hara piped up. ‘Believing the tradition it is bad luck for the couple to meet on their wedding day before the ceremony, Grant LaFleur took his old bedroom at the far side of the house, on the west wing. And that’s where everyone in the LaFleur family was situated too. The Fabrik party attending the wedding all stayed in the guest house on the grounds of the property. The only person in the east wing was the victim, Victor.’

Shawn could always trust in Juliet to have her back.

‘Very convenient,’ Lassiter murmured.

‘Isn’t it just,’ Chief Vick replied.

That meant that anyone could have come into Victor Fabrik’s room and killed him. After all, in a big house like this, a lot of things could go unnoticed. And with no one in the building having a firm alibi, it was probably time for Shawn to see if a theory was true.

She had heard that in empty wings of large fancy mansions, much like in space, no one could hear you scream.


	5. Chapter 5

Shawn had wished to test her theory that no one could hear Victor call out if there had been a struggle by sending Gus to the other end of the mansion then screaming at the top of her lungs, but the look that Shawn received from Chief Vick when she had announced her plan had convinced her almost instantly otherwise. In fact, it had made her want to go somewhere else, like Peru, to get away from the Chief’s ireful glare.

‘Absolutely not Ms Spencer,’ Chief Vick had said, each word carefully enunciated and containing just the appropriate amount of barely controlled rage.

‘Loud and clear Chief,’ Shawn said hurriedly. ‘Or should I say quiet and clear?’

She mimed zipping her lips shut with a wink.

Karen Vick was not amused.

‘There’s plenty more of this estate for you to feel psychic vibrations or whatever it is you do, Spencer. I suggest you and Mr Gustor go and find them.’

Shawn, mouth still pursed shut, nodded and made her leave. Gus followed after her, shaking his head.

So now Gus and Shawn were free to explore to their hearts content while Juliet, Lassiter and the Chief were to stay around to oversee the evidence being collected from the crime scene, including the note and the phone. Both of which Shawn had conveniently pointed out in her faux-psychic ramblings.

This arrangement suited Shawn just fine. Indeed, now that she knew where the other guests had been staying, she was eager to look in their suites, to see if anything of value could be revealed. With all of the LaFleur’s wedding party staying in the East Wing of the mansion and all of the Fabrik’s wedding party staying in the guest house on the estate, everyone was easily investigated.

Shawn started with the guest house. She and Gus had been told by a passing member of staff that the guest house was referred to affectionately as the ‘Guest Cottage.’ But the guest house was to a cottage what a hummer was to a go-kart. Shawn and Gus just took a moment to take it all in. The so called ‘guest cottage’ was bigger than most of the properties available in Santa Barbara.

‘I wonder if there’s a Starbucks inside?’ Shawn asked sarcastically.

What screamed wealth like a smaller mansion directly beside your actual mansion?

‘I think I’m too poor to actually look at this place Shawn, I can literally feel the poverty seeping through my pores. Dude, is this how you feel all the time?’

‘Is this how you feel all the time?’ Shawn echoed mockingly. ‘Shut up man.’

The pair bickered easily the entire way from the main house to the guest cottage. But they had reconciled by the time they had reached the cottage.

Gus asked a cop who was standing dutifully at the door if there was a list of everyone who had been staying in the guest cottage. The cop checked his notes.

‘Irina Fabrik, the victim’s mother, Lee Fabrik the victim’s father, Martha Klein, the victim’s older sister and Serge Fabrik, the victim’s older brother were the four family members staying in the guest cottage,’ the cop said helpfully. ‘Hans Klein, Martha’s husband was due to be staying today but he had helicoptered onto the estate this morning, just after the murder had taken place. His bags were brought up here just before the body was discovered.’

‘Thank you very much for your help’, Gus replied politely.

‘Thanks buddy,’ Shawn added absently, deep in her own thoughts.

At least now Shawn knew the identity of the man who bore no family resemblance to either the Fabriks or the LaFleurs. Hans Klein, the victim’s brother-in-law. One mystery solved, only a thousand more to go to solve this case.

The suites of the guest cottage were beautifully decorated, and were decked out with all the modern features one’s heart could desire. Where the mansion featured an old school, almost French rococo feel, the guest cottage fell under a much more modern banner. Walls were sleek, painted cool greys and whites. Any art was minimal and highly abstract. Subtle nameplates beneath explained what they were and their artist. Shawn didn’t recognise any of the names but Gus whistled appreciatively when he read them, so Shawn assumed they were worth a lot more than they looked.

Because they looked a lot like the artwork Henry had refused to display on the refrigerator when Shawn brought them home from kindergarten.

Shawn and Gus were ushered to the suite that had been shared by Irina and Lee Fabrik, which was the closest guest suite to the entrance. The room was luxurious and impersonal. It retained the aesthetic of the entryway and hallways Shawn and Gus had walked down. Grey and with fashion over homeliness.

After Mr and Mrs Fabrik’s rooms, Shawn and Gus went to their youngest son’s suite, then their daughters. They left the guest cottage and went to the east wing of the mansion where they visited Grant LaFleur’s suite, followed by his mother, Cecelia’s suite and finally the twin’s suites. 

All the rooms were beautifully decorated and all beds had clearly been slept in. Some of the guests had put the covers up again neatly, others did not. Some had kept their suites tidy, others had not, with clothes, toiletries and make-up scattered without much care as to who would have to tidy the mess up. There was nothing too interesting about any room, per se, although Shawn did find each room had their own small secrets.

Cecelia Fabrik’s room was the most personal room, which was understandable; after all, this was her house. Cecelia had hung on her wardrobe, a plush ballgown, undoubtedly having placed it there, assuming she would have gotten the opportunity to change into it later in the evening during the wedding reception. The dress had a lot of padding, particularly in the bust and booty areas and her drawers contained enough Spanx and body shapers to give even Shawn’s father an hourglass figure. After this Shawn was having a hard time believing the celebrity ideal portrayed by the media.

Lee Fabrik, father of the late Victor Fabrik had snuck not one, not two, but three bottles of whiskey in his overnight bag. A little excessive, some might say, for a two night stay.

The twins, Trish and Tamara LaFleur who alternated between living in the estate in Santa Barbara and their New York apartment collectively had enough drugs in their luggage to execute a fair sized elephant despite being built like supermodels. Their suites were connected by an adjoining door, which was open and the two suites were clearly treated by them as one mammoth suite. Their combined suites were the messiest of them all.

Irina Fabrik, the small chirpily nervous recently bereaved mother, had a number of well-thumbed paperback novels that featured covers bearing Fabio-esque men with rippling abs, a distant but masculine expression and women with bodices just ripe for tearing. Said novels were so erotic that Shawn actually blushed deep whilst reading them. She wondered if she should have washed her hands after reading just a paragraph. She felt dirty.

Martha Klein had a secret second phone, and was using it to send flirty texts to her husband’s co-workers. Yes. Plural. But her suite was the neatest of the bunch. Clearly she was the only one who didn’t mind tidying up after herself, folding her own laundry and putting empty bottles and containers in the trash can, and not leaving them on the coffee tables or side tables for others to throw away.

Serge Fabrik was a bit of a ladies man, and had been flirting with one of the maids in the estate. Judging by the bottles of top shelf vodka he had sitting on his coffee table, a few decks of cards strewn around and an apron hastily flung behind the couch, he may have spent last night engaged in a titillating game of strip poker, with said maid. Shawn could now guess why the maid had been late on her cleaning rounds that morning and hadn’t managed to tidy Victor’s room before his death.

All these tidbits were interesting

But nothing immediately screamed murder.

Nothing even screamed for ice-cream.

There was a murder here with no apparent motive. And with any options of secretly finding an explanation through clues now exhausted it was time for Shawn and Gus to actually speak to the people involved.

On their way from the farthest room in the east wing, Cecelia’s Fabrik’s suite, Shawn and Gus got a little lost. As they had finished looking at Cecelia’s room their steps had grown meandering and they had been wandering from room to room with no real destination in mind.

‘I thought you said you knew where we were going, Shawn!’

‘I didn’t say that. I just said _hey follow me!_ ’

Gus tutted.

‘Look, this is the third time we’ve passed this sculpture. You’re walking us in circles.’

‘That doesn’t sound right,’ Shawn said lightly. She turned to the right, to reveal the large drawing room that she and Gus had already walked through two times already. She veered quickly to the left. ‘Let’s go this way instead.’

‘This way’ turned out to be the large dining room, which led to the mansion’s kitchens through unobtrusive doors. The kitchens were a jarring contrast to the intricate opulence and heavy decoration of the other rooms. Their stainless steel countertops and large fridges and freezers were more reminiscent of a restaurant’s kitchen than a kitchen you would expect to find in a home.

On the countertops, most enticingly were masses of food. Itty bitty finger food that Shawn assumed had been made for the wedding that should have went forth that day. She went over to look at the long line of cakes and biscuits, sandwiches and delicate dishes Shawn didn’t even know the name of.

‘Wow,’ said Gus, impressed.

‘Whoo, what a spread man,’ Shawn said. She reached a hand out to pick up a sandwich but Gus thwacked her hand away.

‘Are you mad Shawn? You want to eat this strange food that’s just lying around? What if it was poisoned?’

‘You ate the food laid out earlier. You didn’t seem too worried when you were shovelling mini fruit skewers down your gullet.’

‘Those snacks were for the cops, Shawn. I don’t think the murderer would be crazy enough to tamper for food meant for cops.’

Shawn ignored him and reached instead for a handful of mini quiches, safe from Gus’s thwacking hands.

‘Just making sure nothing is poisoned,’ Shawn said dryly.

‘Ooh, just making sure nothing is poisoned Gus,’ Gus grouched in a mocking falsetto. ‘I don’t think that the victim was poisoned just because he was thrown down the stairs, because I’m Shawn Spencer, Psychic Pain in The Ass. And even if the victim was poisoned my amazing way of testing out the theory is by shoving three mini quiches in my mouth and waiting to find out.’

Shawn’s mouth was too full to refute that statement so she lets Gus win that attempt. She shrugged and he muttered under his breath long-sufferingly. 

The door at the back of the kitchen, led to outside. Shawn used this as an opportunity to look around the mansion’s exterior and to find which of its many windows belonged to Victor’s bedroom. It took a long moment to locate it, but eventually Shawn was fairly certain she had found the correct window. She looked around but could find no trace that anyone had tried to get in or get out. Footprints were absent, there were no signs the gravel had been stepped on, nor were there any signs the climbing ivy they had been disturbed in any way. Shawn had suspected it to be as much. But it was worth double checking.

Having walked around the outskirts of the house, Shawn and Gus found little of interest. Their most interesting discovery was the door down a small flight of stairs outside that led to the mansion’s basement. The biggest basement Shawn had seen in her entire life. It was easily the size of the entirety of the house and then some, and it was split into four subsections. One part had been turned into an underground car garage complete with double garage doors leading down the estate’s long road back to civilisation. The miniature parking lot fit the dozen or so cars that the family owned alongside some nice bikes that Shawn appreciated greatly. 

Another quarter seemed to be used mainly by the staff. It was full of cleaning supplies, mops, brushes, industrial vacuum cleaners and old furniture. It also appeared to be impromptu storage area of sorts. It was probably the least interesting room in the house. It contained rumbling washing machines and dryers, and held a little locker area where the maids and other members of staff could change into and out of their uniforms for work. There was, near the door, a key box containing the keys to a number of rooms in the house, as well the keys to some golf carts. Gus shook his head when Shawn gave him an excited look. It wasn’t the time or the place for golf cart antics. Right not now at least. There was also a flight of stairs leading upwards that made Shawn think it probably led to the upstairs kitchen, or another staff area.

The third quarter was a fully equipped gym and spa, with the fourth and final quarter being a tennis court. Because the two tennis courts, the basketball court, the Olympic sized swimming pool and the squash court the family had outside clearly was not enough.

‘Why does this house even need a gym? I’ve got leg cramps just walking around here the place is so big. If you wanted to keep fit you could just play a game of hide and seek,’ Shawn complained to Gus.

‘If I knew we’d be walking about so much today I’d have done some stretches,’ Gus agreed.

‘Let’s just call it a day and we can talk to the families tomorrow.’

‘Sounds like a good idea, Shawn.’

Shawn and Gus made their way to the back door they had noticed in the staff area, the door was locked. The door in the garage was also locked, and unwilling to walk all the back to the other side of the mansion, they decided to chance their luck climbing up the flight of wooden stairs from the basement to what Shawn thought could be the kitchen or at least another room they had yet to explore. The stairs were a little less impressive that the massive marble staircases or oak staircases Shawn had been exposed to all day. But they more than made up for it when they led to the kitchen and Shawn and Gus were back to familiar territory.

The mansion was absolutely labyrinthine.

By the time Shawn and Gus made it out of the giant basement and back to civilisation the cops and crime scene team had left for the day. Chief Vick had also left to go back to the office, and Juliet and Lassiter, who had stayed around to interview the family were finishing up for the day.

It was almost dinner time. And the handful of mini quiches that Shawn stolen a few hours ago just no longer cut it. She was hungry and her feet were aching. She couldn’t wait to go home. But before she could call it a day she and Gus headed back to the Psych offices, calling in at her father’s house on the way. Shawn wanted to fill him in on the case before he caught wind of her involvement on the news. The news reporters had been scrambling over each other to get any information. And the recruitment of a psychic detective always made good news fodder.

However, Henry wasn’t in when Shawn and Gus called. He was probably out fishing. Shawn was relieved she had gotten away without the third degree from her father, but she gave him a ring just in case. He didn’t pick up. She left a message promising to call him later.

Shawn and Gus could finally call it a day and head home.


	6. Chapter 6

Gus firmly refused to drop Shawn off outside her apartment, as he had done every single time since Shawn moved. Instead he stopped a block away, allowing her to make the rest of her journey alone.

When Shawn’s lease had run out in her old apartment she had moved into a new area. She had only been living there a couple of months ago but Gus did not like the area one bit. He was afraid that in the few seconds it would take to pull up outside Shawn’s apartment and drop her off, like a decent human being should do, something terrible might happen to his precious work car. And god forbid Shawn even suggested Gus ever pulled into the apartment’s parking lot. He treated the very suggestion in the same was as he would have if Shawn had asked him to take a little detour into the nine circles of hell.

Shawn, although she wouldn’t admit it, felt that Gus was quite possibly correct in that decision. After all, her research into the area and the apartment complex she had been moving into was entirely non-existent. Shawn had been lured in by the reasonable rent and the apartment’s proximity to a number of fast food establishments.

If Shawn had done any research at all into the area where she was considering moving, it would have explained why the rent was so cheap. And, why Shawn had been able to move in on the same day she had paid her deposit. People didn’t hang around here for too long for one reason or another.

Nevertheless, the apartment complex had a garage and Shawn’s bike hadn’t been stolen yet. That was always heartening. The neighbourhood drug dealers had stopped bothering her when they learnt that she could talk to the dead. And the gangs had heard about her reputation for solving unsolvable cases and left her alone too.

All in all there were worse places to live. Shawn once lived in an old pet shop, and what it had lacked in strong Wi-Fi it made up in strong smells. At least this apartment smelt like something a human could inhabit.

Shawn didn’t feel ashamed to live in an area like this, despite Gus’ own acute embarrassment at her current living arrangement. It was within her small budget and most times it made a very amusing anecdote at parties. However, Shawn’s lease would be up in four months, and she really would have to start looking at other, less in the midst of gang turf-war, options. Shawn thanked her lucky stars that she had opted for the six month lease over the yearly lease.

Coming home Shawn shrugged off her jacket and hung it on the hook on the back of her door. She locked the door behind her. There were two deadbolts and two door chains in addition to the lock. Shawn had added them the day she moved in, and they had served her well so far. They gave her a sense of security.

Shawn planned to make some food. She had a ready meal in the freezer she could eat, but after the luxury of chef cooked hors d’oeuvres today it paled in comparison. What wasn’t expired was certainly still none too appetising to Shawn. She stood in the kitchen lost for a moment, pondering what in her fridge and cupboards could come together to make a decent meal. Though the answer was most likely nothing.

The knock at the door brought pause to her musings.

It was Lassiter. Shawn could recognise the knock.

Shawn went to the door and opened the locks.

‘God Spencer, this is where you live?’ Lassiter asked incredulously as he stepped into her apartment with no pre-amble. There had been a reason that she had yet to bring Lassiter to her new apartment on dates since she had moved.

‘No. I’m actually house-sitting for Ralph Maccio. He’s off on a pilgrimage to find out if everyone really was kung-fu fighting. And until he’s back I have to water his cat and feed his plants.’

She paused.

She feigned a look of horror.

Lassiter ignored her nonsense ramblings. ‘The SBPD has arrested seven people from this apartment building this week alone.’

‘So?’

‘So?’ Lassiter repeated incredulously. ‘Spencer, it’s only Tuesday.’

Shawn shrugged.

‘Why are you here? And more importantly, how did you find out where I live?’

‘I called Henry,’ Lassiter said, as if it was obvious.

‘Yeah, of course. My own father answers your calls and not mine.’

‘Isn’t this the apartment where the drug dealer got stabbed in his own apartment over a turf war?’ Lassiter asked, still fixated on Shawn’s new apartment building.

‘Technically, yes. But that was two flights up, so it barely counts.’

Lassiter exhaled a breath and shook his head slowly.

‘Are you safe?’ he asked sternly.

Shawn rolled her eyes at his concern.

‘I’m totally fine Lassie.’

But Lassiter’s concern had entirely distracted him from his original reason for showing up at Shawn’s apartment in the first place.

‘Do Gus and Henry know you live here?’

‘They do. They’re not happy about it. But they know. What can I do? It’s a six month lease and these aren’t the type of people you really want to skip rent on.’

Lassiter stared at Shawn for a long moment then shook his head incredulously.

Before him stood the most absurd human being he had ever met in his entire life. It was as if her every movement and action in life had been specially programmed to raise his blood pressure.

The noise of an argument upstairs only served to harden his resolve. But by now Carlton Lassiter knew how stubborn Shawn could be when she wanted to.

‘Have you eaten yet?’ he asked, changing the subject. He knew he wasn’t going to win the exchange, so he admitted defeat, if only for now.

‘I have not Lassie, and I am _hungry_!’ Shawn said.

‘We’re going out for dinner,’ Lassiter said.

Shawn was too hungry to disagree. Of course, they could order food in, but delivery guys didn’t really like delivering to the area and so the cost was always extra. Not to mention, Shawn knew how Lassiter could be pig-headed sometimes, and she hadn’t missed how he had dropped his complaining act about her apartment. So Shawn was content to admit defeat, if only for now.

Shawn and Lassiter left her apartment and made their way towards the parking lot. The pair noticed at almost exactly the same second the drug deal going on in the corner of the dimly lit parking lot. Freezing in his steps Lassiter reached in his pocket reflexively for his badge but Shawn grabbed his hand threading her fingers through his and shaking her head, subtly.

‘Come on buddy,’ she whispered, leaning in closely so only he could here. ‘I live here. I don’t need everyone knowing you’re a cop. Anyway the spirits are telling me that the Narcotics division are planning a sting operation tomorrow evening. So we don’t need to worry about them, right?’

Lassiter grumbled but his grip on Shawn’s hand tightened. He walked a little in front of her as they made their way to the car. It was a protective gesture, but not a possessive one.

Shawn took a moment to wonder how long she and Lassie had been… seeing each other. Shawn wasn’t good at days and weeks and months. Hell, she wasn’t that great at years. It seemed like an instant as well as a lifetime that they had been together. In truth, it had been just over a year since Shawn had been attacked by an obsessed stalker and almost a year since they had cleared the air at the subsequent awards gala where Lassiter had gained recognition for his part in solving that case. Shawn wondered where the time had gone. It felt as if barely any time at all had passed and that in itself was amazing because sometimes when she and Lassiter went toe to toe on a case it seems that the arguments could drag on for hours, days, weeks even.

One could argue objectively that, at this point, things were getting serious.

Shawn didn’t do serious. She felt her palms sweating a little at the thought. She hoped Lassiter didn’t notice. But if this _relationship_ or whatever it could be called had taught Shawn anything, it was that Lassiter was far more observant that she had ever given him credit for. His hand tightened in hers.

‘You okay?’ he murmured.

She nodded.

Lassiter frowned but didn’t press any further. For that Shawn is glad. There is a conversation that could definitely wait for another day. Shawn would pencil it in for the 22nd of Never.

_Oh yeah, don’t worry about me, Lassie. I’m just trying to configure the perimeters of our relationship. You know, the usual,_ Shawn thought dryly.

In Lassiter’s car there was a moment of easy silence as Lassiter made his way out of the parking lot. The small group of the dealer and the customers had dispersed more subtly than their illegal exchange.

‘Anywhere in particular you’d like to go, Spencer?’ Lassiter asked once safely out of the parking lot.

‘You pick,’ Shawn said, having no strong preferences.

‘Well then we can go to that new Italian place. O’Hara recommended it to me during the week. She had gone there on a date with one of the detectives from the cyber-crime unit.’

‘He sounds like a nerd.’ Shawn said.

‘I said the exact same thing!’ Lassiter exclaimed. ‘But then O’Hara got all defensive. But seriously. Cyber-crime? What’s he going to chase down, a fourteen year old boy illegally downloading old rap albums in his parent’s basement?’

Shawn laughed and Lassiter looked confused. Sometimes Shawn found his lack of tact utterly charming.

At dinner the conversation fell understandably onto the case of the day.

Death du Jour. A favoured topic for both Shawn and Lassiter.

‘Tell me a little more about the victim. This Victor Fabrik.’ Shawn said, eager to learn all about the victim and the suspects involved.

But when the server came to take their order they were momentarily distracted.

‘We’ll have two sodas,’ Lassiter said, ordering for each of them. He looked at Shawn for confirmation and she nodded, he had gotten her order correct. Mundane moment like this made Shawn smile. Just getting dinner, knowing what the other would order.

Shawn and Lassiter were on similar hunger wavelengths and decided to get both a starter and main course. They both snorted at the salad option and both chose the crab cake starter. Lassiter has steak for his main and Shawn had a burger.

The drinks arrived before the starter, and when the drinks were placed on the table and the waiter had walked away, Lassiter told Shawn about Victor Fabrik.

‘Victor was a well-known business man. He was one of the suits on the stock market and he made his fortune before the ripe old age of twenty-eight. Everything he did from then on was just for fun. He could have retired but that competitive, profit driven brain worked so intensely that he just kept working and letting the profits build up. He turned to the restaurant world and his competitiveness worked well for him. He opened dozens of high end restaurants with world renowned chefs and made his name as a restauranteur mogul.’

Lassiter paused to sip his soda. He scowled, there was too much ice in his cup. He hated that.

In cases like this, money has to be involved somehow,’ he said as he fished ice cubes out of his cup with a spoon and putting them into Shawn’s cup.

Shawn watched on in amusement. Lassiter was filled with idiosyncrasies. This was just one of his many quirks.

‘Well, he was killed on the day of his wedding, before the marriage was performed and before it became a legally binding contract. So surely the department should be looking at whomever his next of kin was,’ Shawn chimed in as she watched the man before her dilute her soda with ice-cubes.

Lassiter nodded.

‘That’s what we were thinking. Our first bet was Grant LaFleur, the fiancé. But we should have known better, after all, Fabrik’s money was so tightly tied up in an iron-clad pre-nuptial arrangement that there was no way LaFleur would have inherited it anyway. So the people who will inherit are his mother and father.’

‘You don’t sound too convinced it could be them.’

‘They’re rich too. We’re talking absurdly rich, mega-yacht and private island rich. Not as rich as their son, sure, but certainly rich enough that they wouldn’t need any of his money.’

‘So they’re rich enough that even without the pre-nup they wouldn’t have cared about their sons next of kin changing?’

‘Exactly, Spencer. His mother, even though she looks like she couldn’t hurt a fly, taught him everything he knew about the stock market and wall-street. She’s ruthless. His father has a series of well-known cookery books. Enough to fill a bookcase. He has enough royalties to last him to the nuclear winter.’

‘I see,’ Shawn said, sipping her drink, content to let Lassiter talk.

‘There’s no way that Irina Fabrik, his mother, could have pushed him down the stairs. She’s not even five foot tall. He outweighed her and out heightened her. And even if she did push him she would have most likely gotten hurt herself. Not to mention there would definitely have been a sign of a struggle.’

Shawn had seen no signs of struggle near the stairs.

‘He probably wouldn’t have made it the whole way down the stairs either,’ Lassiter mused. ‘He would have just cracked his skull on the first step and stayed there. Whoever pushed him pushed him with a lot of force.’

Shawn nodded. It was clear that they had been on exactly the same page, despite their separate investigations.

There was a polite clearing of throats from the table beside them. There, a couple who were seated with their young children looked at them disdainfully.

‘I wonder if anyone has the right to act snooty in a restaurant they didn’t even need to book?’ Shawn wondered quietly aloud.

Lassiter, who heard, snorted into his soda.

But the family at the other table were right. It was all too easy to get lost in the conversation and theories. And it was all too easy to forget they were in the public realm where conversations of murder and cracked skulls didn’t make for the most appropriate dinnertime topic. Shawn and Lassiter pushed their chairs a little close together so that their legs touched under the table. They leaned a little closer above the table too, almost conspiratorially. Shawn let her hand move forward until Lassiter took it. They weren’t ones for public displays of affection but small moments of intimacy, hands touching, and small acts of thoughtfulness or a shared glance still made Shawn happy.

To an outsider the couple sitting at the table, hand in hand, talking quietly and intently would have looked like they were deep in their conversations of sweet nothings. People may have even thought they were talking meaningless drivel about how much their affections meant, deeply involved in the other’s loving words. In actuality, although intimate and enamoured in the other, they were still deeply engrossed in the crime.

By the time the starters were placed in front of them Shawn was still interested in becoming better acquainted with the victim and now his family. She was also very interested in eating the tasty looking food in front of her. Shawn separated her hand from Lassiter’s so that she could use her fork.

‘Tell me about the father,’ she said, shoving a forkful of crab cake none too gracefully into her mouth.

Lassiter chewed thoughtfully for a moment as he tried to collect his opinions on Victor’s father.

‘You know, he’s bigger than Irina, and he’d maybe even be a little taller than Victor,’ Shawn hypothesised through a mouthful of crab. ‘The strength of a tall, grown, adult man would have been enough to push Victor down those stairs.’

‘It’s a possibility we’re looking into,’ Lassiter agreed. ‘O’Hara and I tried to interview him earlier today but he was drunk as a skunk and no use to anyone. He was sent back to the mansion to sober up.’

‘Unlikely, given he’s an alcoholic.’ Shawn had inferred so much having searched the rooms earlier with Gus.

‘And how did could you know that, Spencer?’ Lassiter asked dryly. ‘Did the spirits inform you?’

Lassiter said that with the same sincerity as if he had suggested that Duran Duran had been secretly feeding Shawn information via messenger pigeon.

‘That’s exactly what happened, Lassie. The spirits told me about the spirits.’

Lassiter groused a little. Shawn knew that he hated it when she talked psychic mumbo jumbo so she usually kept it to a minimum around him out of hours. However, she just couldn’t resist the opportunity to make that pun when the opportunity had arisen, despite Lassiter’s visible annoyance at her ramblings.

Lassiter knew that Shawn wasn’t psychic.

Shawn knew Lassiter knew she wasn’t psychic.

He knew that she knew that he knew she wasn’t psychic.

And so it went on.

So when Shawn’s supposed abilities arose in conversation, there was a brief moment, a second of mutual questioning, uncertainty lingering in the air, which was never addressed. Like a horse, startling before a jump, both parties reared back, afraid of what they may find on the other side.

‘I’ll take your word for it,’ Lassiter said slowly. ‘Alcoholism affects the muscles. He may be a big guy but chances are if he’s been drinking for a long time, he won’t be as strong as he looked.’

‘Perhaps the shaking of his hands earlier was a little more than the feelings of loss and grief of his son,’ Shawn added.

‘O’Hara and I will be interviewing him tomorrow and whether he likes it or not, he’ll be sober.’

‘Ooh, I like it when you get serious, Lassie,’ Shawn teased. ‘It makes me all tingly.’

Starters came and went and Shawn and Lassiter remained engrossed in their conversation. As the main course came and went in a similar fashion, the conversation did not dwindle. Shawn wanted to hear more, talk about more and learn more.

The twins were the next suspects to discuss.

To Lassiter, there wasn’t much worth discussing about Trish and Tamara LaFleur. They were generally vacuous twins in their early 20s, who had never worked a day in their life.

‘They assured me they would never have committed a murder, as they were going to become models, and they wouldn’t want a criminal record to tarnish their reputations,’ Lassiter didn’t sound impressed at this.

‘I suppose that’s one motive to not murder someone,’ Shawn said. ‘Would they even have a reason to kill their brother’s fiancé?’

‘No, if anything the misses LaFleur wanted the couple to get married. They couldn’t list their addresses without calling in a PA for help, but each of them could name a dozen on the magazines who would be taking photos at the wedding today. Tamara LaFleur, told O’Hara, in great detail, the lengths she and Trish had gone to ensuring that their bridesmaids dresses were the most fashion forward dresses possible. After all, _the aisle of the church is, like, basically just a catwalk_.’ Lassiter ended on a falsetto, clearly emulating Tamara LaFleur, if not overly well.

‘Is that so? The more you know,’ Shawn replied.

‘And neither of the twins would get any monetary benefit to Victor’s death, so they’re not really a suspect. And even despite the drugs found in their suitcases, their lawyers will make sure that nothing sticks.’

‘And what about Cecilia LaFleur?’

‘I can’t see that she would benefit anything from Victor’s death. In fact, with the wedding having not gone ahead, Ms LaFleur has wasted a lot of personal time and expense in accommodating both families in her home.’

‘Is there a Mr LaFleur in the picture?’

‘There was once,’ Lassiter replied. He sipped his drink thoughtfully. ‘He died around twenty years ago. Cancer.’

Shawn frowned sympathetically.

‘He too was a businessman, Grant followed easily in his footsteps. Henri LaFleur was the founder of the LaFleur Industries. He was an old fashioned man, and ran a strict business. When he died his wife took over, and adopted a more modern approach. Cecelia LaFleur managed to keep the business afloat easily enough but the office wasn’t really her place. When Grant grew prepared to accept the leadership of the company, she was eager to give it to him.’

‘She didn’t strike me as the boardroom type. She seemed more like the sitting idly on the beach type.’

‘You’d know,’ Lassiter quipped.

Shawn shrugged. She could offer no opposition to that statement.

Conversation paused for a moment when the waiter arrived to take their now empty plates. The pair, eager to extend their conversations in the cosy atmosphere of the restaurant, ordered coffees.

Coffees in hand, the conversation returned to the crime.

‘Do you know how Grant and Victor met?’

‘The two were businessmen at a time. I think their shared experiences brought them together. Grant had mentioned that Victor had once had a soiree in New York celebrating his successes in the restaurateur business. The LaFleurs were in attendance. That was the first time they met.’

Shawn felt a heavy wave of sympathy rising within her. With every snippet of information she learned, Shawn could more fully envisage the story of Grant and Victor. She tried not to overly-romanticise it, but their life, until today, sounded almost like a fairy-tale. The knowledge of how they first met felt like overly personal information. A little needle prick, just to remind her that she was working with real people with real lives, who had suffered real losses.

Shawn looked down, still heavy with her thoughts as the server set down the bill.

Lassiter picked up the bill and slipped his card into the leather folder. Shawn had long since stopped working out how much she would owe for dinner. Lassiter was ferociously old fashioned. One of his very many quirks was that he insisted on always paying for dinner. That was why, when it was Shawn’s turn to choose what to do she chose to stay at home and cook together. But it did feel nice to be spoilt every once in a while.

Bill paid the couple left the restaurant. It was dark outside when they left but neither was willing to call it a night just yet so they walked around for a little while. Conversation drifted off the case and onto other things. Mundane things. Lassiter was considering redecorating his kitchen. He and Shawn discussed colour schemes for a while. Shawn’s contributions weren’t overly useful but Lassiter didn’t mind. He enjoyed how she took an interest in his everyday life as much as in his work life. Shawn’s level of interest in his discussion about cream or white paint was around the same as it had been when talking about the far more interesting high profile murder. It was nice that she genuinely cared.

After some discussion Shawn and Lassiter decided that some paint samples were required to properly judge the paint situation and the conversation moved to Shawn’s apartment once again. Shawn wished that the topic would be dropped and the pair walked arm in arm down the quiet streets. It was easy to forget that there were other people in the world when it was just them and the streetlamps.

‘I knew you’d hate the apartment,’ Shawn admitted. ‘I hate the apartment. Well, the area. The apartment itself is fine. It’s small and cramped and the paint is peeling but it has four walls and a bed which is more than I can say for a few of the places I’ve lived in.’

Lassiter was silent.

‘I just didn’t want you to be concerned.’

He remained silent.

Shawn stopped their lazy steps and stood in front of him, looking up directly into his eyes.

‘Look, see, you’re concerned,’ she said. ‘Don’t be. I’m big and strong. I eat my vegetables and my bread crusts.’

Shawn flexed her admitted non-existent muscles and she saw Lassiter’s face soften. She grabbed the bottom of Lassiter’s jacket lapel pulling him closer.

‘I’m fine anyways because I’ve got someone to protect me,’ she said, her voice a little quieter. She leaned into his chest and the world condensed to contain only Shawn and Lassiter. Lassiter smelled like aftershave and coffee and it was enticing. She could feel his heart beating in his chest.

‘Yeah,’ she sighed, her voice gentler than usual. ‘Gus is getting really brave. He hardly ever runs away from crime scenes now.’

Shawn looked at Lassiter with a sparkle of good humour in her eyes. Lassiter was powerless to resist. He rolled his eyes, supressing a smile and she countered by kissing his cheek.

‘You’re a pain in my ass, Spencer,’ Lassiter grumbled. But he took her hand and made their way back to his car. ‘I still think you should take a self-defence class, or get that baseball back from Gustor,’

‘Why would I need to? I’ve got you to protect me.’ Shawn joked.

She grinned widely when she saw Lassiter’s ears go red. It was the reaction she was hoping for.

Whatever was going on here, labels or not, Shawn was enjoying it.


	7. Chapter 7

Lassiter dropped Shawn off outside her apartment block and waited for her to text him that she was in her apartment, with her door locked, before he drove off. Shawn found that his concern, whilst it was admittedly entirely warranted, was very sweet. But he also needed to learn that in addition to the less than favourable neighbours there were also a large number of everyday families living in her complex. It wasn’t solely run by gangs and dealers and drunks and addicts and violent, mean people.

Shawn knew her next-door neighbours for the first time ever. To her left were a charming couple, one of whom was training to become an EMT. The other was a clerk at a store. They had introduced themselves to Shawn as they stumbled into their apartment cheerfully drunk one weekend. They were celebrating a rare night where they were both off and did not need to get up early the next morning. They watched British TV Dramas loudly until all hours of the morning and provided a commentary to accompany them loudly, with atrocious accents that Shawn could faintly hear through the paper thin walls, but Shawn didn’t mind. She liked the noise. It made her feel less alone. They had introduced her to her other neighbours too.

To her right lived Prisha, a fresh out of college wannabe teacher. She tutored a lot of the kids and teenagers in the building and surrounding area. Strangely enough that made her very popular in the apartment complex. Everyone knew who she was and looked out for her when she came home from tutoring at odd hours. Even the dealers greeted her with a smile and had her back. That was Prisha though. Her smile and positive attitude could power a city.

There was a community feeling in this building and Shawn was unused to it. She was beginning to see the appeal though.

Such thoughts idly filled her mind as she prepared for bed.

The next morning Shawn woke up determined to make a dent in the case. She hadn’t been given the opportunity to talk to anyone yesterday, instead opting to snoop around the biggest and most luxe mansion she had even seen in her life. But if given the chance to talk to the wedding party eventually she hoped to learn something of some use.

She hopped in and out of the shower with an unexpected vigour. Shawn was not the biggest fan of mornings but she was on a mission today.

She met Gus at the Psych offices where he had been sorting out some minor cases and various psychic responsibilities that came with running a psychic detective agency. It commonly entailed lots of over the phone consultations and even the occasional over the phone palmistry. Shawn’s morning was spent calling some potential clients who wished for her assistance and one client who wished for her to host a séance. Whilst Shawn’s knowledge of what a séance entailed was limited to what she had learned watching _The Haunting of Hell House_ nevertheless she agreed easily to hold a séance the following week. Whilst Shawn was on the phone, Gus was doing some background research on the victim and the potential suspects.

And by research, Gus meant that he googled the names of those currently involved in the case and then scrolled through their social media and any news articles or interviews he could find. Luckily for him, this case was high profile and there was a lot of information online.

‘Shawn look,’ Gus said as Shawn put down the phone receiver, another client satisfied. ‘Every person involved with this case has their own Wikipedia page.’

‘Why does that impress you, Gus? We have our own Wikipedia pages too. We don’t necessarily work very subtly and we’ve solved a lot of public cases.’

‘Yes, but these people probably don’t have their name altered on their Wikipedia pages every day.’

‘That’s true,’ Shawn agreed easily.

She wondered what Gus would do when he learnt that it was her who kept changing his name.

After spending their morning researching Shawn and Gus had learnt a lot more about their couple. And Gus was eager to present his learnings through the form of a presentation. He stood up, and Shawn allowed him to take his stage and tell her everything he had learned about the couple that morning.

‘Ok, so Victor and Grant are pretty much a power couple in the upper class Santa Barbara circles. So it seems are their parents and siblings. The couple was born into extreme wealth and then decided to make some more money on their own. Both initially gained recognition and wealth through their investments and work on Wall Street. Eventually Victor branched out to the restaurant business and that’s where he really made a name for himself.’

‘I’m impressed Gus, go on,’ Shawn leaned back in her chair and kicked her legs up onto the table.

‘They met at a charity event, which had been hosted by Victor, and had been together ever since.’

Shawn recalled that Lassiter had mentioned as such at their meal last night, although she didn’t feel the need to tell Gus. He would just tease her.

‘The couple’s marriage had sparked vast amounts of media attention. Now that gay marriage is legalised in the state of California it was finally an opportunity for the couple to bond in a union recognised by both the law and the church. There are so many news reports about the upcoming wedding I couldn’t read them all. The city’s going wild over this marriage. However, as could always be expected, it’s resulted in some more closed minded and bigoted members of the public wanting to express their views by sending threats to the family. The wedding itself was so high profile that there were numerous security concerns. It was already going to be protested by angry homophobes brandishing hateful signs and yelling venom-filled words on what should be a beautiful day. The media has been on high alert, reporting everything in the days coming up to the wedding.’

‘ _Brandishing_ , very nice word buddy. So that’s why Juliet and Lassie were sneaking about so secretively for the last few months. They were to work undercover security on the couple on the day of their wedding.’

‘That makes a lot of sense, Shawn.’ Gus said. ‘But it seems that the most obvious culprit for this would be the groom, Grant LaFleur. I mean, it would have made way more sense for him to have killed Victor after the wedding to inherit his money. But no one else really seems to have a reason to attack Victor. Unless of course it really was the work of some hateful third party who objected to such a high profile same sex wedding in a church.’

‘Mmm, I don’t know Gus,’ Shawn said slowly. ‘I think we need to go back to that mansion and look around some more.’

Returning to the LaFleur Estate that day Shawn resolved that she would search for some way that a third party may have broken in. A hateful disputant protestor of same sex marriage could have been a possible perpetrator in this crime.

She and Gus made their way to the house, having fought their way through the hordes of paparazzi and camera crews in time to see Juliet and Lassiter at the receiving end of a stern talking to from Chief Vick and a grave looking lady in a neat charcoal suit. There was a stern looking man who said nothing, but his expression belayed enough. The pair stayed in the car awkwardly for a moment, not wanting to leave the car and interrupt the serious lecture Lassiter and Juliet were being subjected to.

‘Is that one of the family’s lawyers?’ Shawn asked Gus.

‘Are you serious right now Shawn?’ Gus said, disgusted. ‘You’re telling me you don’t recognise the Mayor of Santa Barbara?’

‘Oh, so the man beside her is the family’s lawyer?’

‘Shawn!’ Gus despaired. ‘That’s the governor of California. I can’t believe you right now.’

Shawn frowned.

‘That’s not Arnold Schwarzenegger, man.’

Gus looked at Shawn for a long moment.

‘Schwarzenegger hadn’t been governor since 2011. Please tell me you’re pulling my leg here, Shawn. This is basic politics.’

Shawn turned back to the stern parties. Lawyers or politicians, it didn’t matter. They were not happy one iota. It was clear, even without knowing what was being said, that they were ensuring the two detectives on the case were being thoroughly told how important this case was. It would not reflect well on them or the SBPD if this was not handled correctly. Chief Vick’s jaw was rigid and her arms were folded.

Gus on the other hand was still trying to process Shawn’s lack of political awareness.

‘Who is the president Shawn?’ he sounded a little desperate.

‘Uh… Julia Mansfield?’

‘Shawn, you know damn well that was Patty Duke’s character in _Hail to the Chief_.’ 

‘Whoever it is, I’m going to go up and introduce myself.’ Shawn reached for the handle of the door.

‘The hell you are,’ Gus said. ‘There’s not a chance I’m letting you go up there and embarrass me with your lack of knowledge.’

‘Fine,’ Shawn said, bruising Gus’ ego could wait until another day. ‘Let’s go into the mansion then.’

The pair got out of the car as quietly as possible. And thankfully they managed to sneak away reasonably unnoticed. Shawn could hear minute snippets of the conversation between the cops who littered the scene. But it was nothing she hadn’t already inferred.

Instead Shawn and Gus walked around the back of the house, and entered through the trade entrance. It was the same door that led into the mansion’s staff changing area and lockers. Shawn and Gus recalled walking around there the day previous.

Shawn found it absurdly easy to walk around the house without notice. A mansion house like this was a house built for people with staff. Staff, who were meant to be neither seen nor heard. Shawn and Gus wandering the halls was just the proof that it would be far too easy to just enter the mansion and walk around unnoticed.

That was until Shawn spotted the security camera hidden neatly in an alcove in the wall. There it peeked up underneath the top of the bookshelf, almost unnoticeable, even to Shawn’s keen eyes.

‘Look,’ she said to Gus, pointing.

Gus squinted.

‘Oh,’ he said, suddenly seeing what Shawn had been pointing out. ‘That’s one tiny security camera.’

‘And I doubt that’s the only one in the whole house. That’d just be bad planning.’

From there Shawn and Gus back-tracked their steps finding that there were cameras everywhere, above artwork, beside doors, in the corners of rooms, placed throughout halls, even in the bedrooms.

Shawn recalled the security hut which she and Gus had passed at the gateway entrance to the house. That would be their next stop.

When at the security hut Shawn was greeted by one stern looking security guard, a woman around her own age, with a matching jacket and hat that both said _Security_ and a visible, very large, gun. Shawn recognised her as the woman who had admitted them through the estate’s gates today and the day before.

‘Hi!’ Shawn said, with a friendly smile. ‘I’m Shawn Spencer, Psychic Detective and Real Housewife of Santa Barbara, and this is my associate and best chum Rosie Bumpkin.’

Gus scowled.

‘We’re working with the SBPD and were wondering if we could have access to the security tapes.’

‘No you cannot,’ the guard said. ‘The cops already came and took the tapes away yesterday. Not that they’ll be of much use to them.’

‘Why is that?’

The guard didn’t look as if she wanted to answer that.

Gus stepped in, looking at the name on the guard’s jacket.

‘Look, Miss White. It is Miss isn’t it?’ Gus said with a winning smile.

The guard looked a little mollified.

‘It is,’ she replied.

‘Well, Miss White, my colleague and I are working tirelessly to help solve the crime that happened here, and you’re really the only person here who can help us.’

The woman shifted a little, looking a little more confident. Shawn could swear she saw a little blush rise in her cheeks. It looked like flattery could get you everywhere.

‘Why don’t we go into your office and you tell us what you know?’ Gus asked smoothly.

Miss White paused for a moment, then opened the door to the hut and let the pair inside. Shawn hoped that they would be able to leave the room. They were in real trouble of getting stuck because of Gus’ inflating head. Still, the security guard was flattered by Gus’ attention. And Shawn needed all the information she could get out of her.

Miss White gestured to the multitude of monitors on the wall of the security hut. ‘Mr Bumpkin, despite all of the excessive security this mansion has, the security cameras aren’t necessarily on at all times. It was one of Ms LaFleur’s many impulse buys. So and so at the yacht club had installed this security system, and so she too just absolutely had to have it. Almost a year ago now she got the entire house rigged up with the ultimate, highest-quality, greatest security system money could buy. A few months later she was sick of the constant surveillance. She said she hated being watched all the time. So she demanded it be turned off.’

‘What a waste,’ Gus said.

‘That’s what I said,’ Miss White said with a smile, directly entirely towards Mr Rosie Bumpkin. She had forgotten Shawn was even there. ‘I finally convinced her to just lower the amount of time it was on. It didn’t have to be constant, but enough to be able to check all is safe and well. It’s only on for certain times of the day now, not twenty-four hours.’

‘That’s smart,’ Mr Bumpkin replied, pleased with the attention he was receiving. ‘You must take your job very seriously. I respect that.

Shawn sniffed, and Rosie Bumpkin managed to descend from his cloud of ego to look at her. She pointed at her wrist.

‘And so, what hours are the camera’s active, Miss White?’

‘During the day, it’s only on for a matter of minutes every four hours or so, but it’s on for a few minutes every hour overnight. I can’t imagine the tapes will reveal very much. The outdoor security is a lot more rigorous, maybe the cops will have better luck with those tapes.’

‘Thank you very much for your time Miss White. I’m sure we’ll get a chance to speak again during this case.’ Gus said. He walked out of the security hut, and Shawn followed.

‘Goodbye Mr Bumpkin.’ Miss White said, standing at the door of the hut. She watched them walk back to the house.

‘Goodbye Mr Bumpkin,’ Shawn echoed mockingly. ‘No goodbye Miss Spencer though.’

‘Well,’ Gus said, as if that explained everything.

‘What would Kim think about you flirting with another woman?’ Shawn asked in an effort to save Gus’ head from growing to gargantuan sizes.

‘What would Lassiter think of you creeping about without the cops knowing you’re here?’ Gus countered.

Shawn didn’t rise to the bait.

She had been keeping her relationship with Lassiter on the DL. She couldn’t let Gus know how it made her heart churn nervously that he had dropped Lassiter’s name the way that she had dropped Kim’s name.

The pair walked in silence, planning on going back to the house when they heard people shouting outside the gates. It was the same mix of paparazzo and protesters outside the mansions gates. The paparazzi Shawn could understand. But she was disgusted to see the protestors standing outside, despite the fact that there was nothing here to protest but a family’s mourning.

Shawn knew that she and Gus had only gotten through the massive imposing gate because they had been let in by security. The iron fence that ran the expanse of the estate, as far as the eye could see was impenetrable, ten foot tall, with pointed pikes at the top. The spikes were more aesthetic then barbed wire, but Shawn suspected that they would do the same job. 

Shawn walked over and touched the fence curiously. Unexpectedly she was jolted violently. It was also apparently electrified and probably more so than was legal. That packed a serious punch.

‘It’s electrified,’ Shawn said somewhat redundantly.

‘I noticed,’ Gus replied dryly. ‘Are you alright?’

‘Yeah, but I think we should split up. I’ll look around the perimeter of the fence to try and find any gaps or any way that some external person may have gotten in and out. You can go ask the protestors and journalists if they have seen anything. They’ve all been basically camped outside the house twenty-four seven.’

Both found very little.

Shawn found the fence just as impenetrable the whole way around, well maintained with no hints of any weak points. In fact near the back of the estate, away from the aesthetics of the house, the iron fence was joined with barbed wire. It remained electrified throughout too, much to the regrets of Shawn’s poor electrified hands. 

Gus found the journalists as intolerable as he had suspected, and the protestors just as bigoted and small minded as he had expected.

‘The protestors, they’re not interested or willing to help the police solve this murder,’ Gus told Shawn when they met back up. ‘These people are celebrating the fact he’s dead. They think it’s justified.’

Shawn and Gus looked on disgustedly at the people holding up hateful signs, shouting disgusting things.

There were many monsters in the world.

And it was sad that the murderer wasn’t the only monster involved in this case.


	8. Chapter 8

Shawn and Gus made their way back to the mansion house. Once inside they were met by a harassed looking Lassiter and a slightly calmer looking Juliet. Their dressing down by the mayor and governor must have come to an end. Thankfully Chief Vick was nowhere to be seen. She was probably off somewhere supressing the urge to scream or berating the rookie officers to take out her frustrations.

‘What the hell are you two idiots doing here?’ Lassiter said. ‘This is all we need right now, two more morons sticking their noses where they don’t belong.’

‘I’m sorry guys,’ Juliet said, more sympathetically than her partner. ‘We’re in deep water as it is. I really don’t think it’ll look good if the press are to find out we have a psychic working on the case.’

‘Um, I- I don’t mind,’ said a voice, the group looked upwards to see Grant LaFleur descending down the flight of stairs. He had clearly heard everything that was being said. ‘I don’t mind if there is a psychic on the case. Please, anything. Literally anything. I don’t care. I’ll hire you privately if that’s what it takes. Just- Just find out what happened.’

‘What a fantastic idea Mr LaFleur. I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, I’m sorry it wasn’t under happier circumstances. My name is Shawn Spencer, Psychic Detective and amateur court stenographer, and this is my associate F-’

‘Burton Gustor,’ Gus interrupted smoothly.

Grant LaFleur nodded.

‘You can certainly hire me to take on this case,’ Shawn said easily. ‘I’ll get Mr Gustor here to fax over the necessary paperwork later.’

‘I don’t have a fax machine,’ Grant said slowly.

‘Good,’ said Shawn. ‘Neither do we.’

Grant laughed for a moment there, suddenly startled at the sheer absurdity of Shawn’s words. In that brief second, his face lit up and Shawn could see the man that he was underneath that mourning.

The man that Victor had wanted to marry.

‘Come with me, Mr LaFleur. May I call you Grant? Of course I can. And you can call me Shawn,’ Shawn said easily, guiding Grant easily from the room, away from the cops and away from Lassiter’s positively thunderous expression.

‘Psychic detective my ass,’ she heard Lassiter growling under his breath as they walked by. She didn’t rise to the bait.

Grant, Gus and Shawn walked into what looked like a living area. It was the most reasonably sized room Shawn had seen in the mansion so far. In any other home it would have been a living room or a lounge, in this mansion it was probably a generously sized drawing room or a morning room. Shawn didn’t know the difference, but Gus undoubtedly did.

‘Please take a seat, I’ll be back in a moment,’ Grant said, leaving the room. He returned momentarily with a cafetière filled with freshly brewed coffee, three mugs, some sugar and milk. It was delicious.

The trio sat and talked about nothing in particular for a little while as they sipped their coffee. Finally, Grant had enough of the pleasantries. He slumped a little in his armchair. He looked smaller, and tired.

‘Please, just ask away, anything you need to know. I feel so useless, I want to be as much help as I can be. You’re here to find out information, now is your chance.’

‘Well, as a psychic detective, I’ll _feel_ the majority of my information or have it conveyed to me through the spirits. But it doesn’t hurt to get some information from more traditional sources. Tell me about Victor’s family. Would anyone have had a reason to hurt him?’

Shawn had deliberately said Victor’s name. She’d noticed that Grant had been avoiding saying it very carefully. He visibly flinched when she said his name. But it was sheer grief in his face, as if Victor’s very name was a dagger straight to his heart.

‘I’ve been thinking about that,’ Grant said. ‘I’ve been thinking about nothing else actually. Someone must have gotten in in the wee hours of the morning. Or it had to be a member of staff undercover or something. Or maybe it was a burglary gone wrong? No one in his family had anything against him and none of them would even hurt a fly.’

‘Were there any new members of staff at the moment?’

‘I can’t answer that, sorry. I don’t live here and the only person who would know the answer to that would be my mother. I do know that the number of staff members is smaller than usual. It’s a bit of a skeleton staff at the moment. We wanted to keep things low key and personal.’

‘I’d like to talk to your mother about this. Do you know where I could find her?’

Grant looked at his watch, ‘she’ll be hanging out beside the pool until lunch now.’

‘Thanks,’ Shawn said.

She stood up and looked to Gus, who then stood up too. He appeared hesitant to leave such fine quality coffee, but he reluctantly put down the mug and stood up.

Beside the pool, in the tiniest bikini Shawn had ever seen, Shawn found Cecelia LaFleur lying on a pool-side sun lounger. After introducing herself and going through the normal pleasantries Shawn got directly down to business. She didn’t know how long Gus could determinedly stare at the pool, staunchly avoiding looking at any inch of skin that Cecelia had on show and she was worried he would take to staring at the sun to avoid embarrassing himself.

‘So, Ms LaFleur, is there any particular reason that you have a far smaller team of staff working for you at this particularly busy time?’

‘It’s simple really; I only employ people I can trust. And with my son’s wedding providing fodder for every glossy magazine and tabloid newspaper in the country, I couldn’t risk that someone may talk.’

Shawn was suspicious.

‘The staff seems stretched pretty thin right now. There’s like ten people staying in your house. Surely they’d like an extra set of hands.’

‘These people have been working for me for years. I can trust them, and they’re more than compensated for their added workload. Besides, my son wanted a low-key wedding and what my babies want, they get.’

With that, it was clear Cecelia LaFleur had deemed this conversation to be over, whether Shawn wanted it to be or not. 

‘I see. Thanks for your time, Ms LaFleur.’

Cecelia LaFleur gave a serene smile and lay back down on the sun lounger.

Shawn walked away swiftly and Gus jogged a little to catch up with her.

‘What’s the hurry Shawn, where are you going?’ Gus asked.

‘The kitchens,’ Shawn said.

Yesterday, the kitchen had ground to a standstill. Today, it was back in working order. There were five chefs preparing food at warp speed. One looked up when Shawn and Gus entered the kitchen.

‘Can I help you?’ he asked, as he julienned some carrots without looking.

‘You look busy,’ Shawn said, visibly impressed.

Gus just looked worried the chef’s hand would slip and the next thing julienned would be his finger.

‘Understatement,’ the man grunted.

‘It’s a skeleton crew.’

‘Five chefs, five cleaners, three gardeners and four security guards.’

‘Worst idea Ms LaFleur has had,’ said another chef, who was preparing desserts. ‘If I had my way we’d have hired a professional fleet of everything, and run this place smoother than a 6 star hotel.’

‘Any idea why Ms LaFleur cut down the employees coming up to the wedding?’

‘Who are you again?’ asked the chef preparing desserts. Shawn presumed she was the head chef of the kitchen due to her different coloured chef’s jacket.

‘Shawn Spencer, psychic detective and part time duck whisperer. And this is my associate, Ol’ Yeller.’

Gus nodded at the chef who looked at him incredulously.

‘Don’t worry, I don’t have rabies,’ he quipped and the chef cracked a smile.

‘Well, I think if it was up to Ms LaFleur there would have been no expenses spared and it’d have been the most high profile wedding of the decade. But Grant and Victor are a little more restrained. They didn’t want publicity. They wanted a more private affair and Ms LaFleur loves her children and she’d do anything for them. What Grant wanted, Grant got.’

‘I’m sure in a house like this, there’s always a lot to gossip about. Do you think there is anyone who would have wanted Victor dead?’

‘No, I don’t think so. Everyone was quite pleased with the union. I thought they were a darling couple.’

‘Thanks,’ Shawn said, stealing a small pastry from the silver platter before her before leaving.

Shawn and Gus left the kitchen.

‘Well,’ Gus said expectantly. ‘What do you think?’

‘No one wanted to harm Victor Fabrik, no one wanted him dead. Sure his parents will very likely receive a large amount of money because of his death but that’s like throwing a bucket of water into the ocean. It won’t make much difference. The money means nothing to them. They’re already super rich.’

‘So, what are you saying? The murder was nothing to do with money?’

‘I don’t think so.’

Shawn’s cogs were whirring. What did it have to do with then? Was it truly what Grant thought it was? A horrific act by the protestors outside. An all too public demonstration of how certain people would not tolerate everyone’s type of love? Was it fuelled by love, hate, jealousy, or money? The usual suspects.

Shawn and Gus were reaching a wall. Not a physical wall, although there were plenty of them around in this labyrinthine house, but a mental wall. Shawn was getting frustrated, as she often did, when she thought cases were just driving her around in circles.

She couldn’t think of much else that the pair could do on the LaFleur estate and no one else from the Grant or Fabrik families were currently available for them to talk to, and so it was time for them to go to the police station and get the statements from the protestors outside. She was not inclined to talk to go to the gates and listen to their horrible words, and Gus who had already been subjected to their bigotry didn’t particularly want to go back for seconds.

As Shawn and Gus walked back to the Blueberry, they could see the parents of Victor Fabrik hosting a press conference outside the grounds. Curious, the pair walked closer to hear what they had to say.

‘What are you going to do with Victor’s money?’ a reporter shouted.

‘We will be inheriting four billion dollars as our son’s next of kin in addition to his restaurants and investments,’ said Irena Fabrik softly and matter-of-factly.

Gus and Shawn opened their mouths in unison.

Four. Billion. Dollars.

Shawn couldn’t physically comprehend so much wealth. She looked to Gus, lost. Gus looked equally as awed. The two of them, looked back at the family making their statement, mouth’s wide like two guppy fish that had just learned their new tank-mate was going to be a great white shark.

‘With his money we will be founding a charity in his honour. Forty million dollars of his money will be used to start up this charity with the aim of helping young members of the LGBT+ community in high risk situations. Those people who have been rejected by their families, who have had to turn to the streets, or live in vulnerable circumstances.’

‘Indeed, we plan to match this forty million with forty million dollars of our own,’ said Lee Fabrik, Victor’s father. ‘And every year we vow to pledge more. Our children are supposed to be our legacy. To outlive one’s own son is something I do not wish for anyone to experience. With this charity, Victor can live on through the money he earned and it shall be his legacy. This money, the wealth he left behind, is not ours. It belongs in the community.’

With that, the conference was over. Both Irena and Lee were sobbing, and neither wanted to answer any more questions or be in front of reporters for a moment longer.

Cruel though it seemed Shawn was glad some good could come out of this tragedy.


	9. Chapter 9

Shawn and Gus had read every report they could find in regards to the murder of Victor Fabrik. Shawn was bored out of her mind and was beginning to regret that they had decided to hole up in the psych office and try and work through this case.

An intense overnight researching session had seemed like such a good idea when Shawn had first thought of it, when she had been sneaking around the SBPD bullpen earlier that day. She had been eavesdropping for any information she could find, and had spotted Juliet and Lassiter commandeering a meeting room, mountains of files in their arms. Lassiter had barked an order that they were not to be disturbed unless it was absolutely necessary.

Countless hours later, Shawn realised that emulating the two detectives was less appealing than she had thought. Usually by now Shawn would have just finagled files from Juliet or the Chief. Turns out, looking deep into the background of suspects involved a lot of hard work. The novelty had worn off a few hours into the research.

As Gus ordered some takeaway food to boost their moods, and fuel their brains, Shawn pondered if Lassiter and Juliet were having more luck than them. They should be, what with their access to more police reports and a coroner’s report. If Shawn wanted to see either of those she’d have to pry them from Chief Vick’s cold dead hands. Not to mention that the cops had the families’ files for any previous criminal activity. They’d certainly be more thorough than Shawn and Gus’ use of Wikipedia.

Shawn wondered if any members of the family had any priors.

She suspected the twins would have more than a few drug convictions under their tiny, designer belts. They weren’t the sharpest tool in the diamond encrusted shed, and they didn’t exactly function on subtle mode. Shawn was sure that their drug taking wouldn’t have been too hard to spot and they probably wouldn’t have tried hard to conceal it. Mommy of course could have made those go charges away. They were friends with the mayor, the governor and hell, probably even the president. What’s a little speed at a pool party or LSD in a nightclub when you’re exchanging meatloaf recipes with the person running the country?

‘That’s probably not how it goes, Shawn.’ Gus said when Shawn shared her thoughts about the twins.

‘How would he know? George Bush probably makes his own meatloaf.’

‘Bush isn’t the president, Shawn.’ Gus said.

He held his hand up to Shawn. He didn’t want to know.

‘I don’t care why you think Bush is still the president. But, you could be on to something. If any of these rich people have prior convictions, it’ll have been covered up deep. And nothing would have gone to court. Maybe you should try to find out if anyone had any crimes didn’t go to court, Shawn?’

‘How would I manage that?’ Shawn asked. ‘Will I hack the system somehow?’

She mimed typing intently on a keyboard.

‘You could always just ask your boyfr-‘

‘Don’t finish that Gustor,’ Shawn warned.

Gus had unsaid gloating in his eyes. He was enjoying lording this source of discomfort over her. But his power trip was short lived when the delivery guy knocked the door of the office and the allure of food proved more exciting than bothering Shawn. Gus put down a pizza box on Shawn’s table. Shawn had suddenly lost her appetite. She ignored the pizza box and put down the file in her hand.

She was drawing a blank after blank in this case, and there was nothing she was reading that had helped any of the pieces in the mystery slot together.

Shawn leant back in her chair and groaned, thinking of anything that could give her a clue.

She looked at the pizza box mournfully, but it remained as clueless as she was. Thankfully, her momentary loss of appetite quickly faded as the smell of freshly baked dough filled the air. She tucked into the pizza and turned on the television, switching the channel to the news. She and Gus ate in silence, focused on the screen. As expected, there were frequent references to the murder which had taken place; reporters still flocked outside the large mansion estate like rabid wolves.

Shawn stood up, a slice of pizza in her hand, interrupted en-route to her mouth.

Gus looked at her as if she had finally snapped.

‘The cops aren’t the only people who’d know if these two high profile families had gotten into any trouble. There are paparazzi that make their living following celebrities’ every move.’

Shawn was practically bouncing on her heels.

‘Gus we have to go back to the house. There are still paparazzi and protesters outside the mansion.’ She pointed at the television. ‘I have to talk to them.’

‘Come on Shawn. You didn’t want to talk to them earlier. Our pizza just arrived.’

‘We can reheat it,’ Shawn said impatiently.

Gus grumbled but closed his pizza box. He wiped his hand on a napkin and picked up his car keys. Shawn grinned like a child and rushed to get their coats.

When the pair arrived back to the LaFleur estate, they didn’t fight their way through the media and protesters. Instead, they parked a couple of streets away and walked to the middle of the media circus. Shawn ignored the protestors and went straight to the paparazzi. She looked around and attempted to find whoever looked like they would be the most valuable source of information.

There was a young reporter, still fresh faced, and wide awake even at this late hour. He was a tall lanky guy, almost gangly, with an assortment of camera bags slung over his shoulders, and expensive camera strung around his neck. Shawn, like a predator, sourced out the youngest of the pack as the potential weakest. He was nervous looking, and clearly the boredom was starting to get to him. He was pacing, stretching, fidgeting and checking his phone frequently. But despite what the rules of the animal kingdom suggested Shawn could tell that his youth and inexperience would mean that he would also be the most likely in the crowd to still be a stickler for the rules. He was still too shiny, new and uptight.

So Shawn looked to the second predatory option, the old. 

There he was at the back of the crowd, coffee in hand and leaning on the hood of his car, the oldest of the paparazzi crew. Lying back leisurely he looked almost asleep but the camera held in his hand tightly, finger on the button implied that he was ready for action at any moment. He looked around her father’s age which bode well for Shawn. Celebrity watching was a young man’s game and you didn’t stay in the business as long as he had without being good at it.

Shawn joined the man in leaning against the hood of his car. The man cracked an eye open, took a long look at Shawn and closed it again. Shawn closed her eyes too. Despite the late hour it was still plenty warm. It was a lazy atmosphere despite the frenzy surrounding them.

Before Shawn could start her pre-planned spiel the man said, ‘Shawn spencer. Psychic detective.’

‘Yup,’ Shawn replied instead.

The man nodded.

Shawn said nothing in return and there was a minute or two of contented silence shared between them.

‘So, what do you want to know?’ he asked.

‘Tell me about the families.’ Shawn said.

‘There are a lot of them, give me a name and I’ll say what I know. But it’ll cost ya.’

‘How much?’

‘A photo. And confirmation that you and your assistant here are on the case.’

‘Seems fair,’ Shawn said with a shrug. The man’s laissez faire attitude was contagious.

‘Shawn,’ Gus hissed from his position nearby. ‘You can’t do that, the SBPD will be pissed.’

Shawn smiled off Gus’ worries.

Gus scowled.

‘Tell me about Victor’s parents.’

‘Alcoholic father and a serial adulterer of a mother.’ He said.

Shawn didn’t know that about Irina, she stored the information away.

‘They love each other though clearly,’ the journalist continued. ‘Let’s just say that they’re about as loving and functional as one can get in a high society, super famous family. But that ain’t overly so in the grand scheme of things.’

‘How about the LaFleur daughters?’

‘Those twins are wannabe models but no one’s told them it’s not the noughties anymore, you can’t be a runway model with a nose full of white powder these days. It’s all about a wholesome image and they’re about as cut out for modelling as I am.’

Shawn laughed at that and the man cracked a smile too. He wasn’t as jaded as he first appeared.

‘And Grant?’

‘My money is on him as the guy you’re after.’

‘Why?’ Shawn asked, curiously, standing up to look at the man. ‘He didn’t get anything from Victor’s death.’

‘Of course not. These families don’t pay their lawyers a ridiculous amount to make their pre-nups anything but absolute and iron clad. We’re talking tighter than a nun’s knickers. Still, Grant is the sort of man who has a bit of a history. He was well known on the party circuits and the drug scene for years. He was a young man who had a stupid amount of money and had no father around to teach him how to treat it right. He learnt how to spend endlessly from his mother. He wasted money on expensive booze, fast cars and loud parties. Of course he claims that Victor changed all this but I’ve has been in the business too long to know that a leopard doesn’t change its spots. He made a nice little earner falling out of nightclubs every night, very photogenic.’

The man sounded almost nostalgic at that.

‘A wild child, huh?’ Shawn said, almost to herself.

‘That’s putting it mildly, Psychic. He was a violent drunk, and he had a history of starting fights with anyone and everyone.’

Shawn leant against the car again. She hadn’t known that. He had clearly gone to great lengths to rid the world of the memory of his younger years, even the internet had provided little information on that.

She liked Grant, she hoped she could discount him soon enough, but things certainly weren’t looking great.

‘Cecelia LaFleur?’

‘She beautiful but I don’t know if there is any part of her that’s natural left. She has got to be a solid ninety-nine percent medical-grade silicone at this point.’

‘She’s a nice lady,’ Gus said, defensively.

The man snorted.

‘I’d be surprised if her personality was real given that so much else of her is fake. But she’s harmless enough. She’s a good earner too, always dressed nicely. Just once I’d love to snap a photo of her taking out the trash in sweatpants.’

‘That doesn’t seem too likely,’ Gus said.

The man sighed wistfully at that.

‘What about the staff here?’

The man shrugged.

‘The protesters?’

He shrugged again. Those people weren’t famous, and therefore he had little to no interest in their comings and goings.

‘Enough questions,’ the man said, as he picked up his camera and gestured for Shawn and Gus to stand together. They posed and he clicked the camera half-heartedly two or three times and gestured for them to be on their way, shooing them out of his general direction.

Shawn and Gus went on their way, returning to the car parked a few streets away. Shawn didn’t doesn’t even try to hide how impressed she was with the paparazzi man the pair had just talked to.

‘That was like the coolest man I’ve ever met,’ Shawn practically gushed on the journey home. ‘He’s like a true old-school reporter. I bet that his cup of coffee had a finger of whiskey in it to stave off the cold on his long nights in the streets, waiting to get those precious few snaps of celebrities.’

‘I hope not Shawn,’ Gus replied. ‘He was driving. He was literally leaning on his car. Can you imagine how dangerous that would be?’

Shawn rolled her eyes. Gus had no sense of romanticism.

‘He thinks Grant LaFleur could be our killer,’ Gus said.

‘He’s not. No one who makes coffee fresh in a cafetière for guests could have killed anyone,’ Shawn said adamantly.

‘That is absolutely not a real reason to think someone is innocent Shawn. We came down here tonight to dig up dirt on the families and we learn that Grant has a history of violence and an out of control party lifestyle which was stopped by Victor. What more do you need?’

Shawn didn’t reply. She didn’t know what she needed. But Grant wasn’t their killer, she just knew it.

‘Could you drop me off at the office, buddy?’

‘Sure.’

‘I’m going to find something. That one thing that proves Grant isn’t our guy.’

‘Rather you than me Shawn,’ Gus said as he dropped her off outside the Psych office.

Shawn entered the office as Gus went home, undoubtedly to go and get a nice eight hours of sleep and a hearty breakfast the next morning before he was off on his pharmaceutical routes.

Shawn on the other hand, flicked on the lights at the office, opened her box of half eaten and now cold pizza, and turned on her computer. With no access to the police databases and casefiles Shawn drew her attention to newspaper archives, tabloid and glamour magazines back-issues. They were buried deep, but nothing could be removed from the internet completely. Not in the world of celebrity at least.

The newspapers and magazines Shawn found were tribute to the low brow journalism that the masses consumed easily. Their contents could hardly be believed, with fantastical headlines and exaggerated tales of the lives of the rich and famous. The only thing Shawn took with any degree of credibility was the photos that littered the articles. Many of them were just as extreme as the articles they were included in. Such images included Grant LaFleur falling out of limousines followed by a gaggle of models and now mostly irrelevant celebrities, Grant stumbling out of nightclubs having lost his jackets and three buttons on his shirt, and Grant with a busted lip and bleeding knuckles. His pupils were dilated in many of the photos. So he was intoxicated.

Or on something stronger.

But these photos were from seven years ago, before he had even started dating Victor.

The media were fond of referring to Grant with such nicknames as the ‘Billionaire Bad-Boy’ and the ‘Rebel of Wall Street,’ Shawn had noticed, and it seemed that he had been living up to the reputation. But seven years ago Shawn hadn’t been too reputable either. She empathised.

The photographer she had talked to earlier had mentioned he didn’t believe a leopard could change his spots, but Shawn wasn’t too sure.

Was it possible she was empathising too much with Grant? After all Grant was in love with a man who by all accounts had been straight laced and serious, business focused and mature. Whilst he still had the repercussions of his immature younger years flashing over his head like a flashing neon sign, despite his maturing and successes in his career.

All had been smooth sailing for Grant and Victor, until it all came tumbling down.

Pizza consumed and eyes tired from reading Shawn headed back to her apartment and ignored the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach which warned her at a moment’s notice, her own joy could crumble just as violently.


	10. Chapter 10

The next morning Shawn was awoken by the shrill ringing of her cell phone.

It was Chief Vick demanding that she and Gus come down to the station now.

As Shawn dressed she wondered what the Chief would need from her so early in the morning. It could just be that Vick was itching for some concrete evidence and some results from the resident psychic; it could be a big break in the case.

Instead, it was neither. 

Shawn and Gus were ushered into the Chief’s office and greeted by Karen Vick throwing down the newspaper in her hand to reveal the image on the front page.

COPS CAN’T SOLVE FABRIK’S MURDER ALONE exalted the headline in a bold font.

PSYCHIC DETECTIVE CONFIRMS SHE COMMUNES WITH SPIRITS TO HELP THE COPS SOLVE THE MURDER OF VICTOR FABRIK, the subheading continued.

‘Ms Spencer, Mr Gustor. Care to explain why the two of you are on the front page of every tabloid newspaper in the state?’ The Chief asked through gritted teeth.

Shawn looked at the newspaper. It was the image that the photographer had taken last night.

‘Ah,’ was Shawn’s reply.

‘Shawn. You two were supposed to being low key about this. How god’s name is that low key? It’s unacceptable.’

‘Chief, we didn’t-’ Gus began.

‘I really don’t care what your aim was here. But you’ve really put your foot in it this time. How can the SBPD trust you with any information when you may go to the media and blabber at any time? I’m telling you now, that if the pair of you so much as approach a single member of the LaFleur or Fabrik family without some sort of police escort you will never work another case again. That is not a threat. That is a promise.’

Chief Vick stared directly into Shawn eyes as she said that.

‘We understand Chief,’ Gus said. He took the threat seriously, as he should have done.

Shawn, not so much.

She gave the Chief a smile, that the Chief returned with a tight mouthed scowl and the pair were dismissed and sent on their merry way.

Wholly unrepentant Shawn had actually spent the entire journey back to the psych offices filling Gus in about what she had learned about Grant LaFleur last night.

‘Shawn, are you out of your damn mind? Any of this information the cops will certainly already know. In fact while you’ve been reading old magazines and getting information from the press like you’re in a film noir, the cops have had access to years of arrest records and actually useful information,’ Gus said as he pulled in to a parking space.

Shawn could tell that his dressing down by the Chief had affected him a lot more than it had affected her.

Gus gripped the steering wheel hard, and inhaled slowly, in deep calming breaths.

‘Listen Shawn, what you’ve found is all very interesting but we can’t say anything the cops don’t already know and now we can’t go work on this case without a cop with us. Which, last time I checked, we don’t.’

‘Hey man, that may not be exactly true.’

‘No Shawn. That is exactly true. Verbatim.’

Shawn smiled innocently when Gus scowled at her.

He looked at her hands, typing quickly on her phone.

‘What are you doing now Shawn? It better not be related to this case.’

‘Huh?’ Shawn said innocently.

‘Who are you texting?’

‘No one.’

Shawn put her phone in her pocket.

‘Let’s take a break from all this. It’s clearly got you all worked up, look at your shoulders, they’re so tense.’

Shawn reached as if to give Gus a shoulder massage, but he jolted away, irritated by her contact.

‘Fine, suit yourself. I was a masseuse in Italy for three months.’

‘You were a masseuse in a run-down massage parlour in Little Italy for three weeks.’

‘That’s what I said,’ Shawn said breezily. ‘Come on man, let’s go to the beach. You need to get some sun and some fresh air.’

Gus reluctantly agreed and they exited the car, bypassing the psych offices in favour of walking onto the beach.

Half an hour later, Shawn and Gus, who had acquired loungers and ice-cold colas, were joined by a man in sunglasses and a baseball hat.

It was the universal undercover celebrity outfit.

Gus, who had functioning eyes and the ability of basic recall immediately recognised the man to be Grant LaFleur.

‘Shawn,’ he hissed.

‘Hmm?’ hummed a dozing Shawn.

‘We talked about this. I won’t be a part of this.’

‘Come on man,’ Shawn whined.

‘No Shawn. I won’t be a part of this. This is a terrible idea.’

Shawn waved away Gus’ concerns.

Gus dramatically turned his back to Shawn and Grant, refusing to be a part of whatever was about to happen, though Shawn noticed he didn’t just stand up and walk away, so at least he was curious at what Grant was here to say.

Shawn too didn’t look at Grant, who had sad down awkwardly beside them. Instead she lay back, basking in the sun. When she was once again comfortable she began to ask her questions.

‘So, you were a wild child,’ said Shawn. She was being a bit blunt, but as a high flying business man who had cut his teeth on the stock market, he could take it.

‘Child is the operative term there. I’d been wild until I met Victor. Then I calmed down. I finally could calm down. I found what I wanted, what I was looking for. Him.’

‘Why the party lifestyle?’

‘What can you expect with coked up sisters and a mother with a spending habit that can’t be rivalled? Of course I spent my money, and partied too hard. It was all I knew. To me it was what a young twenty-something was supposed to do. I didn’t know any other way to spend my time. Work hard, play hard and all that.’

Shawn was familiar with the concept of youthful rebellion.

‘I believe you.’

‘Thank you Shawn. I’m glad someone does.’

‘Tell me about Victor. What was he like?’

Grant’s breath was unsteady. Shawn gave him all the time he needed before he could talk.

‘Victor was my opposite, a stay at home stickler. He saved his money, gave to charity, good causes. He didn’t party too hard and he certainly didn’t he get in public brawls, which seemed to be my two favourite hobbies back then. He was refreshing to me.’

‘I hate to ask, but we you ever violent towards Victor, even as an accident?’ Shawn asked softly.

‘The police asked me the same thing but they didn’t believe my answer.’

‘I will,’ Shawn said earnestly.

‘I feel like you will,’ Grant said. ‘No I never hit Victor. I could never hurt him. He saved me. He made me a better person.’

‘He saved you?’ Shawn echoed.

‘Victor was so hard-working, it made me want to sort my life out too. I started helping keep my dad’s business on its feet. Sure my mom was not the business magnate genius that my dad was but the company was getting by. But I knew with a little work it could have been even better. My mom was just keeping the wheels turning, leaving everything to the executives, and my sisters have no interest in taking over the business, so I stepped in. Then I stopped drinking, it wasn’t until I stopped that I realised I relied on it so much. But as I stepped away from alcohol, Victor became my rock. I started saving my money instead of blowing it as soon as I got it, stopped gambling and started to finally grow up.’

‘So that was the end of the party life?’

‘It wasn’t so much the end of partying as the evolution and the maturing of it. I went from a twelve day bender, taking in the nightlife every continent had to offer, with a group of twenty people I didn’t really know, to calmer and collected dinner parties with the people I really cared about. I just wish I could have helped Victor as much as he helped me. He didn’t deserve to die. It should have been me; I’ve messed up so much in my life. Victor should still be here, helping people.’

Grant was sobbing quietly, and Shawn let him grieve. 

She had listened carefully to Grant speak. He sounded genuine. There were no hints of falseness in his voice. She looked away, so as not to make him feel self-conscious in his moment of mourning. She looked instead to Gus, who had slowly turned back around, curiosity overcoming his earlier complaints.

‘Ask him about Ricky T, Shawn,’ Gus whispered almost inaudibly, not wanting Grant to hear him.

‘Who? Ricky T? Who the hell is that? Shawn whispered back.

‘Ask him, not me,’ Gus hissed.

‘Why would I ask him, I don’t even know who that is? Ricky T. What kind of name is that?’ Shawn hissed back.

A brief moment of bickering ensued, enough to catch Grant’s attention.

‘You want to know who Ricky T is?’ he said with a sigh.

‘If you could, the spirits are giving me that name.’ Shawn said, trying to look serene and in possession of psychic powers.

‘Richard T Kahn. He’s my ex-boyfriend from my wilder days. When we were dating he was a fashion journalist and a gossip columnist. These days he’s an up and coming television reality star. He had showed up the day before –’

Grant paused and swallowed thickly.

‘-The day before the wedding was supposed to take place. He had tried to stir up some drama for his show’s new season. He had been invited to the wedding. We had stayed friendly over the years. He wanted to know if there was any way we could schedule some drama on the day of the wedding. He wanted to cause a scene.’

‘How so?’ Shawn asked. She hadn’t realised that reality tv could be so… unreal.

‘Richard had wanted to do a storyline where we were still secretly in love with each other, and he wanted me to know that marrying Victor would be a mistake.’

‘Was that true?’

‘Absolutely not.’

Shawn nodded her head.

Disgruntled, Gus could hold back no more.

‘Are you really going to believe this man Shawn? This is such an obvious lie, no offense.’

Grant shrugged, no offense taken.

‘I believe it. He sounds pretty truthful to me. And the spirits have raised no concerns.’

Shawn wanted to ask Grant more questions. But his cell began to ring. He answered it and said a few affirmatives and hung up.

‘I’m needed back at the house,’ Grant said.

‘Sure,’ Shawn said, still a little reluctant to let him go.

Grant stood up, and brushed sand off his pants. He lowered his baseball cap and walked back up the beach to the boardwalk.

‘You were very mean there Gus,’ Shawn chided. ‘Of course he’s innocent.’

Gus raised an eyebrow.

‘What the hell are you talking about Shawn? You’re the only person that thinks that. To everyone else it’s pretty obvious that something happened before the wedding. Victor didn’t want to marry Grant, or Grant didn’t want to marry Victor, but they couldn’t get out of the engagement without causing an outrage and huge financial loss.’

‘I mean, sure, over the years their businesses had become intertwined and to separate now without causing major business losses would have been next to impossible. But I’m not convinced two very intelligent men would have made such a vulnerable position if they didn’t entirely trust one another.’

‘Ooh, I’m Shawn and I’m not convinced blah blah blah,’ Gus mocked in a bad falsetto. ‘More like you can’t admit when you’re wrong.’

Shawn frowned.

‘When am I ever wrong? I’m never wrong, you know that.’

‘You’re very frequently wrong Shawn.’

‘Oh yeah? Give me an example.’

‘How about when you thought that Daniel Radcliffe and Elijah Wood were the same person?’

‘I said an example of when I was wrong Gus. That’s not wrong. They’re the same person.’

Gus rolled his eyes and stood up.

‘Where are you going?’ Shawn asked.

‘I’m going to your father’s and you’re coming too. Maybe he can talk some sense into your fool head.’

‘I’ll go to my dad’s but only because I think he’ll shed a little light on the situation. Show you once and for all how wrong you are.’

Henry Spencer, was outside painting a fence when Shawn and Gus pulled up.

‘Hey, you promised me you’d help me paint my fence two weeks ago, Shawn. I’m tired of waiting. So it’s fortuitous you should show up right now.’ An already irate Henry thrust a paintbrush in Shawn’s direction and Shawn shrieked, leaping back so as not to get covered in paint specks.

‘Hey, watch where you’re aiming that thing, man! This is a new shirt. We don’t have time to paint your fence. We’re on a case and we need some help.’

‘No painted fence, no help from me,’ Henry said firmly.

‘But dad-‘

‘No _but dad_ from you Shawn. Go get an old shirt from the house, paint the damn fence and then we can talk. You too Gus.’

Henry was firm on his stance and the stony look of resolve in his eyes meant Shawn could only gripe and groan, stomping her feet as she walked into the house, returning with two of Henry’s old retired Hawaiian shirts that had seen better days.

The shame of someone seeing her in the shirt prompted her to paint in record time. Gus, less inclined to help stood pretty much by one picket, lazily pushing the brush up and down, making minimal headway.

His expression showed Shawn that he enjoyed every second of her labour.

Unexpectedly nicely Henry came out with some orange juice for everyone to enjoy. The cool orange juice was blessed reprieve from the scorching heat and the scorching shame of wearing a shirt so colourful that even the blind had to shield their eyes and turn away.

Sitting on the porch outside, in a lovely spot of shade, Shawn and Gus filled Henry in on the situation.

‘I’d like to agree with you Shawn, if you had any evidence that it was someone else. I’ll admit this guy Grant doesn’t seem like the most obvious candidate because of the lack of motive but realistically he was the most likely of them all. Unfortunately Shawn, some people don’t need a great reason to kill someone. Sometime homicides are solved and we never know the motivation behind the murders. It’s unfulfilling sure, but that’s life.’

Shawn ground her teeth, growing increasingly stubborn. She _knew_ that Grant was innocent. Why won’t anyone else believe her? Couldn’t they just _see_ how deeply he cared for Victor? How everything was crashing down as he now had to think of a life without him? No one was that good an actor.

Shawn sulked deeply, lost in thought. The motive was there for Grant to have killed Victor, sure, but there was motive for others too.

Grant LaFleur, reluctant to marry a man he possibly didn’t love, couldn’t get out of the engagement without losing a significant portion of his own wealth.

Victor’s drunken father, Lee Fabrik, was obviously too drunk to make his own dinner let alone any new cookery books. Perhaps the fear of losing his income and the pressure of his straight laced son chiding him grew too much.

Victor’s mother, Irina Fabrik, promiscuous and unfaithful to her husband, was a prime candidate for blackmail if she really was prone to having extra-marital affairs. Maybe the good-natured, serious Victor had thought that he could blackmail his mother into stopping her philandering ways.

Martha Klein and Serge Fabrik could have been tired of living in the shadow of a seemingly flawless and successful brother who had never made an error in his life. Perhaps it shone a hard light on their flaws and had made them bitter.

Trish and Tamara LaFleur, the twins could have killed Victor when he refused to give them money for drugs. Or maybe Victor had told them that Grant wouldn’t support them financially, after the wedding, if they were just going to waste that money on harmful drugs and they were feeling desperate. They certainly weren’t the type to think things through beforehand.

Grant’s mother, Cecelia LaFleur could have killed Victor because he didn’t like her frivolous spending ways. She obviously was addicted to shopping and plastic surgery. Ninety-nine percent of her was fake thanks to top of the range cosmetic procedures and the general consensus was that her personality was fake too. She obviously loved her son but Shawn suspected she felt very little affection for anyone besides her children. Maybe like her son, Cecelia was subject to fits of anger and the stress of preparing to host such an important wedding grew all too much.

But to everyone else looking into this case there seemed only one explanation that fit, it all went back to Grant and the hypothesis that he needed to get out of a business agreement worth billions and couldn’t get out without losing it all so he took the violent way out.

Shawn scowled.

‘You look like Lassiter when you’re scowling Shawn. You know they say that couples take on each other’s mannerisms after a while,’ Gus teased.

Shawn scowled even further.

‘Shut it,’ she says in a crappy imitation of Carlton Lassiter’s famous growl.

‘We’re not a couple Gus,’ Shawn added too, thought she knew she had left it too late to protest.

‘Sure,’ Gus snorted.

Shawn thanked her stars that her father had been absent for that exchange.

He didn’t need to know anything about that.

So what had Shawn learned today? Well she had learned about Grant’s youthful rebellion, and the possible involvement of Ricky T. But Grant had been adamant that their relationship was now purely friendly, and that Ricky’s interest in him was solely to pump up the numbers in his new show.

Who really knew the truth in this game of he said, he said?

Only a fly on the the wall.

Thankfully these days, Shawn knew one of those.


	11. Chapter 11

Shawn and Gus were greeted by an old door with a peeling nameplate bearing the name Franklin West. Photographer and Senior Journalist of the Santa Barbara Bulletin.

Shawn knocked the door but she was met by silence. She took it as an invitation to enter. Gus scowled at her lack of manners, but followed her in nevertheless.

Franklin West, as Shawn and Gus now knew him to be called, (and Frank to his friends, no doubt) was the older photographer they had talked to outside of the LaFleur estate. 

Shawn hadn’t known much about him other than the fact he was the coolest person she had ever met, but the newspapers that the Chief had thrown down on the desk that morning, warning them off the case, had told her all she needed to know to find him.

After all, Frank West had been leaning on the hood of his car the night before, a car which bore a Santa Barbara license plate, and of the numerous newspapers that had displayed the photo of Shawn and Gus, only one was local. The Santa Barbara Bulletin.

Shawn and Gus found it all too easy to walk into the newspaper offices. The constant milling around of people meant they were practically unnoticed. The pair just followed signs until they found the room they were looking for.

Frank West’s office was small and cramped. What was once a decent sized office had shrunk as it had been filled over the years with large mismatched filing cabinets. They lined the walls and were stuffed with the numerous newspapers which featured his photographs and articles. Surprisingly no journalistic photos adorned the wall; instead there were beautiful nature shots of Santa Barbara’s wildlife and the ocean. It seemed that Shawn wasn’t the only one right now who didn’t subscribe too heavily to the cult of the celebrity.

‘He’s not here Shawn, this was a waste of time. Let’s go,’ Gus griped, looking around uncomfortably.

‘Come on buddy, take a seat, relax a little,’ Shawn said as she moved a pile of papers off a worn leather chair and sat down.

Gus didn’t like being in the office one bit, but he sat in the chair beside Shawn, facing the desk and waited impatiently for Frank West, who may or may not show up at any moment.

The pair didn’t have to wait long as soon there was a grumble and grunt as Frank came in through the door, pushing on the door handle awkwardly with his elbow, a coffee cup in one hand and a brown bag in the other.

He grunted again when he saw Shawn and Gus, acknowledging their presence, but climbed around the reams of paper and whatnot to climb to his side of the desk. There he sat down in an equally worn leather chair, opened the brown bag he had brought with him and pulled out a bagel, not caring that he was taking his precious time in front of expectant company. Once he had taken a bite of his bagel and washed it down with coffee and a grimace at its bitterness, he gestured to Shawn.

‘Well? What the hell do you want, Psychic?’

‘I want to know what you know about Ricky T and about his reality show.’

‘Who?’ asked Frank. He was playing ignorant, and Shawn knew it.

‘He’s a celebrity based around Santa Barbara. He’s filming his new reality show in the city. And I just know that a photographer as skilled as you must have been after his trail more than a few times.’

Frank shrugged.

‘Maybe I have maybe I haven’t, but whatever it is, it won’t be for free.’

Shawn nodded. 

Gus, who had been sitting in terse silence since Frank had entered the office hissed at Shawn.

‘Don’t you do or say anything Shawn. We just almost lost our job today for exchanging information with this man. What do want to do now? Just throw away all possible career prospects with the police department forever and all because you’re awestruck by an old white guy in a trench coat?’

‘Hey relax man,’ Shawn said.

If it were possible Shawn saw Gus’ shoulders tensed up even more. He looked like a violin string tightened to the point that even the slightest touch of the bow would cause it to snap.

Shawn gestured to all the photos hanging on the walls.

‘There are lovely photos Frank. Were they taken by you?’

With a mouth full of bagel, Frank nodded.

‘Near the Psych offices there’s so many beautiful views that can only be seen from the ocean. I mean, sure it’s pretty looking out to the sea, but damn if it isn’t a beauty on a boat looking in.’

Frank grunted in agreement.

‘It’s lucky then that I just happen to know someone with a fishing boat who would be more than willing to go out whenever you wanted to snap some pictures. Maybe just one early morning sunrise photography session in exchange for what I want to know?’

Frank sipped his coffee, in thought, and then cracked a smile. The sides of his eyes crinkled and he looked mischievous. Shawn thought she had met somewhat of a kindred spirit in Frank West.

‘You’re really a sly thing Shawn Spencer.’

‘I’ve always been a big fan of Sly and the Family Stone.’

‘So, what do you want to know?’

‘Is Ricky T in a relationship? Or has he been seen dating anyone?’

Frank shrugged.

‘I’ve seen him almost every time with the same man. I’m no expert but I’d taken from their body language they were dating.’

‘Was it Grant LaFleur?’

‘Nope.’

‘Victor Fabrik?’

Nope again.’

‘Why didn’t you mention Ricky T’s presence in the estate when we talked before?’

‘You didn’t ask.’

Shawn couldn’t argue with that.

‘Tell me about Ricky T then. It doesn’t have to facts. Just give me your honest opinion.’

Frank had spoken astutely about the LaFleur’s and the Fabrik’s in their last little exchange. Shawn knew that although he didn’t know any of them personally, he had a keen skill in observation. She valued his opinion.

‘I’ve never met anyone more void of personality. He couldn’t be less suitable for having his own reality show. The most interesting thing about him is the people around him. And his ability to piggy back off of other’s fame. He was a last rate journalist who only got his job because mommy and daddy paid money to the right people and it was a way to justify his partying. Today he’s replaced his unreadable drivel to unwatchable garbage.’

‘Damn, don’t hold back Frank,’ Gus murmured so only Shawn could hear.

‘Can you imagine Ricky T killing Victor in a jealous rage?’

Frank threw his head back and laughed at that. He had a gold tooth.

‘Ricky T cried last week when the server in Jamba Juice got his order wrong. He’s a pretentious little child. And even if he did get mad and want to do something drastic he doesn’t plan meticulously and get even, he throws a tantrum and mommy and daddy sort it out.’

‘How that hell does anyone with rich parents achieve anything? Most of the rich kids I’ve met recently are patrons of the Bank of Mom and Dad and have less life skills than a baby panda.’

Frank snorted.

‘You have no idea, kid. These people you’ve been dealing with seem pretty well adjusted to me compared to some of the other wackos living in the big houses out there.’

‘Do you think that there was any possibility that Ricky T was having an affair with Grant LaFleur, even if both of them had partners?’

‘If they could have an affair where they never spoke or never met, then sure. Ricky T has been more concerned about his new fashion line than getting busy with one of his exes. If you ask me, he only got involved in this whole fiasco because he wanted something interesting for his show. If he hadn’t been so hard pressed to generate something titillating for the undiscerning masses at home watching his crap, Ricky T would never have felt the need to meet with Grant LaFleur again.’

‘Huh,’ Shawn said. She had no more questions really left to ask. But her mind was processing what she had just learned.

‘Are you done now?’ Frank asked as he crumpled up the brown bag and threw it into the bin, his coffee cup was thrown in after.

‘Would you like me to read your palm?’ Shawn said with a grin.

‘Get the hell out of my office Psychic,’ Frank said, with no real venom in his voice.

Shawn and Gus made their leave.

‘I’ll be in contact as to when and where I’ll want his photography trip,’ Frank shouted before the door closed.

‘Got it!’ Shawn replied.

‘Well what do you think?’ Shawn asked to Gus. ‘He doesn’t seem to think Grant did it either.’

‘I think you’re just accepting the words of someone you just think is cool. If I acted like a bad ass private detective maybe you’d listen to me for once Shawn. Somehow I don’t think that’s likely.’

‘That seems right to me Gus. You wouldn’t suit the hat.’


	12. Chapter 12

Shawn’s morning of enthusiasm and can-do attitude had waned into a far less enthusiastically inclined afternoon. Shawn and Gus, hoping for something to give them a little energy stopped for coffee before returning to the office. Gus queued for the coffee, not trusting Shawn as she frequently and intentionally got his order wrong. Shawn stood outside, feeling the slight breeze in the air, a small reprieve from the humidity of the day.

Shawn took a seat on the bench outside the coffee shop and allowed her head to fall into her hands. She wasn’t exhausted, though to a passer-by that is what it would have looked like. She was frustrated. She was frustrated that no-one believed her theory that Grant LaFleur was innocent. She was frustrated that she wasn’t allowed access to the police information on the case. And she was most of all frustrated because she had brought the isolation from the case upon herself through her damn overconfidence. She had let her thirst for information overcome her thoughts for the repercussions of her actions, and in turn it had cut her off from the information all together.

Shawn’s cellphone beeped, indicating a text.

She raised her head, squinting from the sun and pulled out her phone. It was a text from Juliet. Much like the lovely lady who had sent it, the text was short and sweet.

_Grant LaFleur interview 2pm._

Shawn broke into a grin. Juliet had her back, as always. Even if Shawn couldn’t have access to his police records, at least she could observe the interrogation. Maybe Grant would say something that could finally prove his innocence.

As Gus returned to Shawn’s side, two coffees in hand, Shawn showed him the text.

‘Good. Maybe now you’ll get a wake-up call that Grant LaFleur isn’t all he seems,’ Gus said dryly, though he strongly doubted that it would be that simple to change Shawn’s mind. She was like a dog with a bone.

Shawn and Gus, with time to kill before 2pm, drank their coffees leisurely then headed straight to the station. Although straight was perhaps a little exaggerated. After all they did need to make a brief detour for churros. And then once again for doughnuts. But it was fine. They were on time.

In typical just-their-luck fashion, as the pair began to climb the steps to the station, Gus’ cellphone began to ring. Gus answered it and after a few repetitions of ‘yes, yes, of course, it’d be my pleasure’ he hung up.

‘I have to go Shawn,’ Gus said reluctantly. ‘That was the office, and they were looking for me to come in and fill in some extra rounds. It’s not ideal but I really need to make that extra effort to show my dedication in my performance.’

‘Yeah yeah,’ Shawn bemoaned. ‘I’ll fill you in later.’

Shawn walked into the SBPD alone, and managed to sneak into the observation room without anyone noticing. She stood there in the dark and in silence for a long moment, listening intently in case anyone attempted to walk into the room and discovered her. 

Finally the light flicked on in the interview room, which in turn illuminated the observation room a little. The meeting started when a defeated looking Grant LaFleur was escorted into the room by Lassiter and O’Hara. Upon entering the room Juliet’s eyes flashed momentarily to the glass, just looking expressionless into the mirror , she tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear in what was a casual gesture to everyone else in the room. To Shawn it was a warning, stay quiet.

Sneaky detective O’Hara.

Sneaky indeed.

If Lassiter found out Shawn was here and that she was still working on the case, he would not be best pleased. Of course, Lassiter was never very pleased when he was at work or on a case. Much like Shawn, he found the process all consuming. Everything zeroed down to catching the bad guys and putting them away for a long, long time. 

Speaking of a long time, Shawn wondered how long it had been since they last had the chance to talk.

It had only been a few of days, but it felt more.

Every time Shawn’s phone buzzed, she hoped it would be Lassiter, messaging her, or calling her to let her know how he was doing. Right now, Shawn didn’t need to talk to him to see how he was doing. Lassiter looked like crap. Death warmed over looked like an understatement. The bags under his eyes were deep and dark, and he looked pale, like his every meal since they had eaten at the restaurant had been instant junk food and crappy coffee made in the station’s coffee machine.

Seeing Carlton Lassiter just feet away, but separated by the one way glass, Shawn realised with no uncertainly that she missed him.

She missed him greatly.

Shawn had been stubborn, not wishing to bother Lassiter when it was clear he was as deeply invested in the case as she was. But her resolve was crumbling. She wanted to see him, talk to him, and make him grump and bluster as only she could do best. How amazing it was, that only three or four days apart could make her feel such a way.

Her thoughts meandered to poor Grant LaFleur, the poor man who had felt about his fiancé the same way Shawn felt about Lassiter, someone to make them better, to rely on and remind them that they’re worth saving.

But now Grant was without Victor.

Shawn’s heart palpitated in her chest uncomfortably.

Shawn was thankfully pulled from her reverie when O’Hara began the interview, marking the time and the date for the sake of the recording. She listened intently; irritated that little of what Grant was saying was new to her. It was the rehashing of old information, once again. But O’Hara was probably just trying to ease Grant into the process, relax him a little.

As Grant stumbled sorrowfully though answering question after question, Shawn half listened, half worked her way through the other possible suspects in her head.

The drunken father, Lee Fabrik? No motive. The adulterous Irina Fabrik? Again, no proof of a motive. Martha Klein? No motive. Serge Fabrik? No motive. Cecelia La Fleur? No Motive. Trish LaFleur? No motive. Tamara LaFleur? No motive.

Grant LaFleur?

He would get out of a marriage that could have cost him billions if it ever ended in divorce.

Grant LaFleur was only the most likely candidate due to his possible motive. No one else had a concrete reason, so no one else was a suspect, or at least, that’s how it felt right now to Shawn.

It was just a hunch that Shawn couldn’t shake off, the idea that Grant LaFleur was innocent.

But as she stood there, face scrunched in deep thought in the exact way she knew Gus would make fun of her for doing, she couldn’t say why but she knew it was true. He was wasn't Grant. Yet, just has the SBPD had no proof that Grant was the killer, Shawn had no proof he was innocent.

One could reason that Grant couldn’t have killed the man he loved, but love didn’t seem like a very good reason when Shawn worked every day uncovering murders that happened under the twisted guise of love. She had seen the darkest sides of love, possession, violence, and ‘if I can’t have her, no one else can’ sides of love.

But Shawn knew that crimes of passion were usually, you know, passionate.

This one was not.

It was cold and calculated. And indifferent. There was no love lost in this murder and to Shawn it didn’t align to Grant’s testimonies of love for Victor that Shawn wholeheartedly believed to be earnest. 

But that wasn’t enough of a reason to prove his innocence.

Shawn groaned in frustration, and ran her fingers through her hair in discontent. Grant was just saying the same things for the millionth time. He was reliving the agony again and again.

‘Retrace your movements on the day of the crime, Mr LaFleur. Tell me about your relationship with Victor Fabrik. Is it as happy as you keep insisting or was there trouble in paradise? Did you have a falling out?’

It felt like a broken record, with every jump of the needle, repeating itself.

But the manila folder in Juliet’s hand, made Shawn curious. This was obviously something new but what it was? She had no clue. Behind the mirror Shawn felt like she was watching her own private tv cop drama. It was clearly something that the pair were building up to show Grant. Could it be they finally had some evidence against him?

Shawn watched Juliet and Lassiter exchange a look, agreeing wordlessly that it was time for the Grant to be given the manila folder and Shawn unconsciously stepped closer to the glass in anticipation. But as Juliet picked up the folder there was a knock at the interview room door. It was Buzz McNab looking his usual awkward self.

‘What do you want?’ Lassiter barked.

McNab took an involuntary step back.

‘Uh, sorry for the interruption, detectives,’ McNab managed to stumble out. ‘Dr Strode has the toxicology reports back and Detective Lassiter, you made it very clear that you wanted to be informed the second they were made available.’

Juliet, who had opened the Manila folder just a smidge, closed it again as Lassiter stood up. Juliet stood up too, turning briefly to the mirror. That glance told Shawn what she already knew; it was time to get out of there.

But Lassiter and Buzz were already walking towards the exit. She heard Lassiter say, ‘let me just get my files from the room.’

Shawn looked to her side where the papers lay. She had to think fast. She did the only thing she could do in the time she had. She ran to the door, and opened it. Then, she didn’t try to escape. She knew she’d never make it. The two cops were only feet away. Instead she turned around just as she heard the door of the interview room click closed, and held onto the door handle. To Lassiter and Buzz it appeared she had been caught in the act of sneaking into the interrogation room.

‘Nice try, Spencer. Get the hell out of here.’ Lassiter said with venom.

Shawn turned to the pair looking sheepish.

‘It was worth a try,’ she said trying to look innocent.

‘Get out. Now.’ Lassiter growled, glaring at her.

‘Fine, I’m leaving,’ Shawn said, hands up in surrender.

She left and Buzz gave her a sympathetic smile. Shawn returned it with a cheeky grin of her own and left on her merry way. She’d got away easy there, she hadn’t riled Lassiter up enough to make a scene. With Chief Vick’s office so close by any big issues would have drawn her attention. Things could have gone a lot worse. Though she did regret missing the end of the interview.

Right now though, it was time to get back to the office. ASAP.

Shawn had some new information.

At the office, Shawn quickly dragged out the whiteboard which had been, until now, entirely unused in this investigation. Usually Gus did all the finding pictures of the suspects and printing them out and writing little fact files about them on the board for easy reference. It was a job he took seriously. Shawn however, did not have the time, nor the patience. She drew an assortment of little stick figures plus whatever information stuck out in her mind for easy reference. It may have looked disorganised and nonsensical to most, but to Shawn she could see the pieces start forming together in her mind.

Finally, her new information was written down too. It was a single word.

_WILL._

That thin slip of paper that had flashed before her eyes in the interview room before her hasty escape was a Last Will and Testament, presumably of someone who wasn’t Victor Fabrik.

Why not Victor’s will? Victor’s will had been already made public knowledge. Shawn and Gus had seen it in the papers, on the news, and they had heard Victor’s parents talking to the press about what they would do with their share of his wealth.

Whoever the will belonged to and whatever it said was clearly juicy enough for Juliet and Lassie to bring Grant LaFleur in for questioning. 

This was the fresh lead Shawn was waiting for.


	13. Chapter 13

When Shawn received a call from the Chief, she had been sitting in front of the clear board that she had filled some hours ago with all the information she had deemed pertinent to the case. The laser focus and almost eerie intensity with which she had been observing the board, wracking her brains as she tried to let no detail go unnoticed, meant she had missed the first few rings of the phone, but as it continued it finally pierced her concentration and brought her back into the present.

‘Hey Chief, want me back on the case?’ Shawn answered, never one to beat around the bush.

‘Very much the opposite Ms Spencer,’ was the glib reply. ‘Cecelia LaFleur has been kicking up a fuss. She claims that the SBPD’s treatment of her son is unacceptable and that she and her lawyers will be there within the hour. It has been brought to my attention that you were seen sneaking around the station earlier today so this is your verbal warning. Do not set foot on the site of the Santa Barbara Police Station until this case is over with. I do not want anyone to think that you or Mr Gustor is involved in this case. No. I should rephrase that. You are not involved in this case, regardless of Grant LaFleur hiring you as a private investigator. I hope I make myself clear. In case I haven’t let me say it again. _You are off the case_.’

Chief Karen Vick hung up. She knew better than to afford Shawn the opportunity to talk back to her.

Shawn felt a pang of pity for those in the police station. She could hear the tension in the Chief’s voice, a tightly wound string just ready and waiting to snap. Whilst the case was not massively complex in its details, its notoriety and fame of those involved was disgustingly tabloid seducing. Shawn had a feeling that Chief Vick was close to pulling the cord out of her phone and throwing it very, very, very far away. It had to be exhausting avoiding the eyes of the media and the worryingly quick updates of the online reporters who seemed to know far too much. More than the Chief was comfortable with the general public knowing.

Shawn stared at the phone, as if willing the Chief to call back and revoke her earlier statement. Pigs had a higher chance of flying.

Ultimately though, Shawn was never one to be deterred from solving the case by something as trivial as being forced out of the investigation and explicitly told to stop being involved, so she easily turned her attention back to the clear board before her, settling down once again into a deep pensiveness.

Gus returned to the Psych offices, pharmaceutical trolley in hand, a short while later. There he found Shawn deep in thought, and the previously blank board littered with scribbles, doodles and information that only made sense to her.

‘Well what did you learn at the interview?’ he asked expectantly.

‘Nothing new yet, but I’ve got an exciting new lead And even more importantly a little birdie, an angry little birdie who is the Chief of all the other cop birdies just told me that with Grant LaFleur in custody and Cecelia LaFleur coming down to the station to give cops a piece of her mind, there’s an opportunity to go snoop around the house again.’

‘The Chief told you to go sneak around the LaFleur estate again?’

‘It was something like that,’ Shawn said lightly.

Gus didn’t need to know about the Chief’s earlier phone call and her firm warning that she and Gus should stay far away from the case they were no longer welcome on.

‘I’m not coming with you Shawn. We’ve been told not to be on the case without a cop with us. And I think showing up to the scene of the crime is more than a little obvious if there’s cameras all pointed directly at the front gate. If the Chief finds we were there without a cop we’re dead meat.’

Gus had no idea how correct he was. The Chief would skin Shawn alive if she knew that she was continuing on with the case against her direct orders, but Shawn was edging closer to the truth. Like hell would she let that opportunity slip through her grasp. 

‘You have to man,’ Shawn whined. ‘You’re paramount to the event in fact. There’s going to be seduction, treachery, espionage and a brief musical interlude. No wait, there will be none of those things, but I need a safe cracker and I know someone who has a particular set of skills.’

‘Fine,’ Gus sighed, his ego suitably stroked. ‘But this can’t take too long, I’m only on my lunch break. You have one hour Shawn.’

Shawn knew despite Gus’ blustering she had him hooked from the first mention of a safe.

‘Good. I don’t know where I could find Liam Neeson on such short notice.’

‘Shut up and get in the car Shawn.’

‘Fine but I’m driving.’

At the LaFleur estate Gus and Shawn drove through the wrought iron gates and up to the house.

‘Can’t you park, like, anywhere else, Shawn?’ Gus complained as Shawn parked the Blueberry right outside the front doors of the expansive mansion house.

‘Don’t sweat it, buddy,’ Shawn said. ‘We’re not going to be staying very long.’

Shawn and a more reluctant Gus left the car and climbed the steps up to the double doors of the mansion. Shawn rang the doorbell and gave Gus a knowing wink.

Gus scowled.

A moment passed before the door was opened hesitantly by a maid.

‘Hi! I left my cell phone in the house in my last visit here. You might remember us? We were here with the SBPD,’ Shawn told the maid, giving her a winning smile. ‘You guys don’t have like a lost property box or anything?’

‘No sorry, I don’t think so?’ the perplexed maid replied.

‘No? That’s okay. Grant said he thought he had seen it in the home office.’

‘I can get it for you if you’d like.’

‘No! I’d hate to make more work for you!’ Shawn said enthusiastically, stepping confidently into the house. ‘We can find it ourselves, can’t we Gus? We’ll be two ticks!’

Shawn and Gus made their way to the stairs.

‘Three ticks maybe,’ Shawn amended. ‘But that’s just because Gus thinks he’s in better shape than he actually is.’

Gus, who had been following Shawn, made an offended noise behind her.

The pair bickered the entire way up the stairs and once out of view of the confused looking maid, who was standing, bewildered by the still open door. Once out of the maid’s view Shawn pointed Gus in the direction of the office where he hurriedly went, ready to bust open a safe.

Whilst Gus worked on that, Shawn provided some distraction by pretending that she couldn’t remember where the room was she had been looking for. Shawn was tailor-made for providing a distraction.

‘Was it the first room on the left or the room on the right?’ she said in a stage whisper, still loud enough to be overheard by the maid.

She paused for a second, mostly for dramatic effect.

‘Come on Gus, it was only one flight of stairs, you really shouldn’t be so out of breath you can’t even answer me.’

Shawn grinned, she could imagine Gus huffing and puffing as he worked away at the safe, unable to put a stop to Shawn’s antics.

‘Excuse me, sorry,’ Shawn shouted down the stairs. ‘My memory isn’t as good as I thought it was is it the first room on the left or the first room on the right?’

‘It’s the first room on your right, ma’am.’

‘Oh great, thanks! Come on Gus, take a minute to catch your breath.’

Shawn knew Gus would kill her after all her theatrics, but it was giving him precious time to open the safe.

Shawn made a show of choosing the wrong door, once or twice more before finally finding the right room. She hoped she had given Gus enough time to have made an impact on the safe’s lock.

Walking into the room Shawn shouted, ‘Gus found the right room! But listen man, you should really consider getting an inhaler or something. No one should be _that_ winded trying to climb some stairs.’

In the room she was given a death-glare from Gus but his expression thoroughly smug couldn’t be concealed for long.

‘Man, you’re a genius!’ Shawn whispered. She crouched down to the safe that appeared full of important documents.

Shawn rifled through the papers as quickly as possible, anything that looked remotely like what she was looking for she pulled out her phone and snapped photos of. She put the documents back as if they had never been touched. It was as if they had never been there.

Shawn and Gus emerged from the room, Shawn holding the cell phone in her hand. Climbing down the stairs, she held it up triumphantly.

‘Found it!’ She exclaimed to the maid.

Gus on the other hand jogged down the stairs, trying very hard to appear as physically fit as possible, hoping, somewhat in vain to undo Shawn’s previous lies.

They returned to their car and drove away. Their mission had gone off without a hitch. They were often lucky like that.

Gus was practically bursting at the seams as he unsuccessfully tried to quell his excitement at the safe he got to open. Shawn was content to let him talk and enthuse about it on the entire journey home. His pride at being able to open it so quickly and efficiently had practically wiped Shawn’s slate clean. She was well and truly back in his good books again. That was good because if Shawn knew anything, it was that there was still a lot of work ahead, and plenty of opportunities for Gus to get mad at her again. She didn’t know what it would be. But she knew he would find something to be mad at her for soon enough. He always did.

At the office Shawn was once again alone. Gus had to return to Central Coast Pharmaceuticals to finish his days’ work. She had promised to call if she had found anything interesting. Though Gus complained and bemoaned Shawn’s involvement in the case, she knew he was as interested as she was, even if it was deep down.

Very, very, very deep down.

Shawn turned on the coffee-maker, connected her cell phone to her computer and looked at the pictures she had taken. She had managed to get very clear photos of a number of legal documents, despite the precious little time she had to take photos of them. The only blurring in the images was the blurred legality of what she had done.

The photos Shawn had taken were of copies of the LaFleur family’s wills. She couldn’t find the originals when she rifled through the safe but she strongly assumed that the police had taken them away. There were a number of wills in the safe and Shawn had taken photos of all of them in the hopes one of them held the key to what might have happened. Cecelia LaFleur and her late husband’s wills were both there, as were copies of Grant LaFleur’s and Victor Fabriks. Still in their twenties, Shawn assumed that Trish and Tamara LaFleur simply did not have wills, explaining why theirs were not among the stash she had found. When you were that young, death didn’t quite seem like the kind of thing that would happen to you. Not to mention the twins likely did not have much of their own. The Banks of Mother and Brother were what helped them survive.

Finally seeing the copy of Victor Fabrik’s last will and testament with her own eyes, Shawn found it impossible to comprehend the money that he had left behind. There had been talk of billions but to see it written numerically was something else.

 _$4,000,000,000_.

Shawn blinked, attempting to absorb how much money that truly was. She stood up, fetched a cup of coffee and sat back down again. She read the amount of money again, but it remained unfathomable. Four billion dollars had been bequeathed to his parents with a lesser amount to his sister and his brother. The rest of his wealth was bequeathed to Grant LaFleur as well as ownership of his current businesses.

Shawn noted that Grant LaFleur’s own last will and testament was very similar to Victor’s. A considerable sum of money would go to his mother, a lesser sum to his sisters, and his share of the businesses and the rest of his wealth would have gone to Victor.

Shawn now knew why Juliet and Lassiter had found this information so juicy. She knew immediately that the cops would assume the Will and Testament was proof that Grant killed Victor so that he could inherit full control of the businesses.

Shawn kept reading the documents, scanning them quickly.

Curious as to what would happen if Cecelia LaFleur would pass away, Shawn read her will too. If she were to pass away all the industries she had inherited from her late husband would go to Grant, her remaining wealth to her daughters and her estate sold with the money split between her children.

But looking at all the wills Shawn could see things coming together in her mind. Particularly when she looked at the last will she had photographed.

The Last Will and Testament of Henri LaFleur.

Scanning through it Shawn saw some of the pieces falling into place and cautiously, she started to believe she had solved the case.

It had been a long time coming.

Shawn spent a long time staring at the computer not really looking at the images before her, but rather thinking very carefully about the real impact of what would happen if and when the truth came out. She wasn’t concerned about the public backlash she would receive from the media if her suspicion was wrong. She had her theory now and it was starting to solidify. Shawn wasn’t an idiot although she enjoyed acting like one. She was very aware that when the case was solved her involvement would have to be made to appear non-existent. After all, not only had she been repeatedly warned away from the case, but it never looked great when the media attributed crime solving, not to old fashioned police work, but to the ethereal skills of a psychic detective.

Shawn knew deep down she couldn’t be the one to solve this case.

It had to look like the SBPD had solved it.

Shawn sighed. This wasn’t going to be easy.

Shawn picked up her cell and called Gus.

‘What Shawn?’ came the muffled voice of Gus speaking holding the phone to his ear with his shoulder.

‘I think I got it buddy. I know how to prove Grant LaFleur is innocent. But first I need to go to the station and talk to Lassie or Juliet. Preferably Juliet.’

‘Do I have to come?’ Gus said, more out of duty than a genuine will to leave his office.

‘You don’t have to come if you don’t want to.’

‘I don’t want to Shawn. I can’t believe you do. You must be out of your mind. I don’t want to be kicked out of the station of the millionth time this week and I don’t want to call work to explain that I won’t be able to come in tomorrow because I’ve been arrested for impeding a criminal investigation.’

Gus lowered his voice in the last part, clearly not wanting to receive judgmental looks from his co-workers.

‘Right, okay, I get the message,’ Shawn said. ‘Geez.’

Shawn let Gus hang up. She threw back the last of her coffee and picked up her jacket, helmet and keys to the office.

She’d go over to the station on her bike and talk to whoever she could when she got there.

If they even let her in the door.


	14. Chapter 14

Arriving at the station Shawn was greeted by an obstacle she had not expected to find before her. There was a tidal wave of desperate journalists flooding the front of the SBPD steps, waiting impatiently for some news, any news about the new developments in the case. Namely Grant LaFleur’s arrest. 

Shawn kept her helmet on and her head firmly down so she wouldn’t be recognised. But it felt a little akin to one putting on a fake moustache or even Grant LaFleur’s earlier celebrity disguise of putting on a baseball cap and sunglasses. She had clearly fooled nobody when she heard reporters calling her name and asking a blur of questions which she ignored, not because she didn’t want the attention, but because she was currently focused on her one task.

She had to make the SBPD solve this case.

Finally fighting her way into the building she was greeted by a cheerful Buzz.

‘Oh, hi Shawn, so I guess you heard an arrest has been made?’

‘Grant LaFleur?’

‘Yeah!’

Shawn nodded, her face remained stony.

Juliet stood at Lassiter’s desk compiling a pile of sheets. She looked tired and though her hair was still in a pristine ponytail and her make-up was perfect, the slight crumple in her usually crisp shirt was a sign that she was feeling the pressure to solve this case as much as everyone else.

Shawn wasted no time and rushed over to her.

‘Jules, hi! I have to talk to you.’

'I’m sorry Shawn. I have to help the Chief write her statement to the media. She has to go out and face those journalists and their cameras in twenty minutes. I really have no time to spare.’

She picked up her folder and gave Shawn a sympathetic glance.

‘This is urgent,’ Shawn said lamely, but Juliet was already gone, her brisk steps were accented by the tapping of her heels on the hard floor of the precinct.

Shawn jogged over to Buzz, growing in frustration.

‘Where’s Lassie?’

‘Uh, Detective Lassiter is in the evidence room getting everything together.’

‘Okay man, thanks.’

‘You might not want to talk to him right now, Shawn. He’s not in a good mood.’

‘Yeah yeah,’ she said dismissively. ‘Tell me when he’s not.’

Shawn wasted no time, she ran to the evidence room. Buzz hoped Shawn knew what she was getting herself into. The evidence room was feeling distinctly like a dragon’s lair of late, and the dragon was well and truly ensconced inside. Smoke pluming from his nostrils and all.

‘Lassie,’ she called.

Carlton Lassiter looked up, raising his head from an impressive mountain of paperwork and files. His eyes didn’t soften when he saw Shawn like she had grown accustomed to seeing. He was in work mode, plain and simple.

‘You better leave Spencer. You know you shouldn’t be here. You’re not part of this case.’

‘I know I’m not Lassie, but you have to listen to me. I know what happened, and you’ve got the wrong guy. It’s not Grant. Stop what you’re doing and come with me.’

Shawn had favoured speed over tact in getting her message across. She saw immediately she had put her foot in it.

With no sleep and an inconceivable amount of stress placed on his shoulders, Lassiter found Shawn’s doubt the tipping point. Here he was, four days deep into a case that had taken up all his time and proved all consuming. He had been shaving in the precinct bathroom, eating cold takeout he ordered but didn’t have the chance to eat while it was still warm. He hadn’t been home in three days. He’d been showering at the precinct and shrugging back on the same old suit. When his eyes grew dry and irritated and he could think straight no longer he had grabbed what little sleep he could at his desk. Lassiter’s head was pounding, his back was aching and his joints were stiff. 

All the while he had been avoiding the constant ringing of phones. The ringing of the phone on his desk, a never-ending barrage of questions from the media, the ringing of his work cell phone and calls from a plethora of lawyers, legal advisors, representatives, people of considerable reputation who felt their input was relevant to the case. Some more determined members of the media had found his personal cell number, their frequent calls at all hours were meant to wear him down into giving them information but it only had made him want to throw his cell phone at the wall and hope it broke into a thousand pieces. The only thing that stopped him was seeing O’Hara dealing with the barrage too, and her calmer approach to dealing with it.

The worst ringing phone Lassiter had to deal with was the non-stop ringing of the phone in Chief Vick’s office. Those calls were the toughest ones, from higher up members of the police force and government friends of the LaFleurs and Fabriks demanding to know how the SBPD could have slipped up in letting this murder happen in the first place. The walls were thin and Lassiter had heard Vick’s attempts to placate the higher ups, but flattery and promises only worked so long, and unless this crime was solved someone would have to be held accountable. The Chief never mentioned those calls directly to him or O’Hara, but he could see the stress getting to her, the worry in her eyes. So Lassiter burrowed deeper into his work and allowed his own worry to fester more and more.

It was easier to take his rage out on Shawn than on the media following his every move, judging his every action, forcing him to work and work to the bone to solve this case. He was more than aware that his own incompetence in keeping the victim safe in the first place had led to the murder happening.

There was a reason he had confined himself in the evidence room. The mere presence of people was enough to send him flying off the handle right now and the other cops were giving him a wide berth as he stomped and raged like the feral beast he currently felt he was.

Shawn could see Lassiter’s turmoil. She stepped forward but didn’t touch him, that’s not what he needed right now. His breathing was deeper as he tried to prevent his anger from rippling to the surface. He put down the pen in his hand with more force than he intended. It tapped against the table with a staccato click that carried in the heavy silence of the room. He had wanted to snap it in half with his bare hands but he tried to reign in those impulses.

‘Please, listen to me.’ She begged.

Lassiter was having none of it.

‘Spencer, you have been called off this damn case more times than I can remember. You have to do yourself a favour and leave right now,’ his voice was barely controlled, his jaw clenched as he tried, and failed to keep his anger under control.

‘I can help. You can trust me.’

Lassiter’s eyes widened at that. Shawn had turned the tense conversation into a full blown argument with just those magic words. The faucet of Lassiter’s emotions turned and turned, shifting from a drip to a cascade.

‘Trust?’ snarled Lassiter.

Now Lassiter had a place to vent his frustration. As he reached his emotional boiling point he let it all spill over.

‘You can trust me? The hell I can Spencer. You lie and you go behind the back of the SBPD, you learn pertinent information and you tell us nothing just so you can swoop in and save the day. You might have everyone else eating out of the palm of your hand, but I can see through it all. I’m not fooled. I can’t trust you at all.’

‘Please Lassie, it’s not about this. The real culprit is getting away. They’re not going to hang around Santa Barbara now they know someone else is on the hook for the murder.’

‘This. Is. Not. Your. Case,’ Lassiter growled teeth clenched, almost spitting out every word.

‘Lassie, come on. It doesn’t matter. I’m here to help. The spirits have told me-‘

It was the final straw. With those words Shawn didn’t just put her foot in it; she had stepped on a damn landmine.

And Lassiter exploded.

‘IF YOU TALK ABOUT THOSE _FUCKING_ SPIRITS ONE MORE TIME.’

Shawn and Lassiter were both in a small cramped evidence room. Lassiter’s voice was pounding off the walls as he could no longer hold in his frustration, cutting her words off. Shawn knew that people could probably hear him in the bullpen and in the cells. Hell, Gus probably heard a tremor at the pharmaceutical company.

‘How damn stupid do you think I am? Spirits? Don’t bring that crap up with me. I don’t believe it for a goddamn second Shawn Spencer.’

His voice dropped down quieter. It was a deadly restrain, more intense than the yelling that had just preceded it.

‘How can we have a relationship when its very foundation is built on the biggest lie of all?’

That cut Shawn deep to the core. She stood there, sliced down to nothing in just a few words.

She said nothing.

What could she say?

Lassiter stopped when he saw Shawn wasn’t going to scream back at him. Deny it all. His chest rose and fell visibly as he struggled to calm down and regulate his breathing.

This was not something that had just come to mind. It wasn’t something that just arose from the heat of the moment. This was something that had been eating away at Lassiter for days, weeks, months.

And for all Shawn’s hyper observance she had noticed nothing.

She could have cried if she didn’t want to punch herself for being so goddamn stupid.

But Lassiter wasn’t done, not by a long shot. He probably wasn’t aware that every single venom filled word was thrusting a knife into Shawn’s chest, killing her again and again with his every grievance.

‘You ask me to trust you to listen to you? Why should I trust you when we both know you’ve been lying to me every day for years?’

Shawn was hurt but not confused.

This was the very thing that kept her up at night, in a cool sweat, her nightmares come to life. In her lowest moments, when she could feel that her insecurity and anxiety reigned, her thoughts compelled her to think of this horrific scenario, and they told her, this is how it would all end.

_He’ll reject you._

‘Do we really have to do this now?’ Shawn said. Her voice was soft and resigned.

He nodded.

She was quiet for a moment, she wanted to look away, anywhere else than Lassiter’s gaze, burning into her eyes. The intensity in his eyes made her feel so vulnerable.

So Shawn turned around so she didn’t have to look at Lassiter. So she couldn’t see the passion and pain in his eyes. So he didn’t have to see the equal hurt in hers.

‘We’re going to talk in hypotheticals.’

‘What?’ Lassiter said.

‘Don’t interrupt,’ Shawn said. It came out harsher than she had intended but it was effective and he fell quiet.

Shawn’s palms were sweating.

‘Say, hypothetically there was a woman, who noticed things that people usually missed, things that could help in police investigations. Imagine, in theory, she found that the only way that she could be listened to was by pretending to be psychic. Maybe she’s been doing this for years, making these seemingly impossible observations, pointing out things that you just _couldn’t_ know that quickly, not because she’s psychic, but because she’s been trained to do it since childhood and because her hard-ass dad made her the best of the best, the ultimate cop.’

Lassiter was silent.

‘Now, say, in a purely conjectural way, that she made some mistakes when she was younger, meaning that she could never live up to her father’s wishes. So her dreams seemed to be over. But then she found a way to make a difference, have fun and make her father proud.

But what if she ever admitted that she was not in fact psychic, that she had been merely using her Sherlockian levels of acute perception to solve crimes, say to the Head Detective of the very department she assisted? Well, that would pretty much be admittance to obstruction of justice and it would be a pretty huge case of interference in police investigations to boot. And even though this woman was talking merely in conjecture, she could easily face jail time, all for trying to help solve murders, thefts, kidnappings. She was just trying to help.’

_I was just trying to help._

Shawn fell silent. Words had spilled out of her and whether she liked it or not, she couldn’t take them back. Silence reigned for a long moment. Shawn didn’t want to turn around to look at Lassiter but some sadistic compulsion made her do it.

When she looked at Lassiter again there was something stirring behind his cool blue eyes that she didn’t quite want to figure out. He looked at her, long and hard.

He spoke slowly, fumbling gruffly over his words.

‘Well maybe the theoretical Head Detective understands a little better now, and would perhaps be willing to listen to perception and reasoning more than psychic bullcrap.’

Shawn smiled falteringly at Lassiter. It was a smile of relief. It was relief that the rage was gone from Lassiter’s eyes and had been replaced with something gentler, relief that he had understood what she had said, and relief that he hadn’t rejected her.

Shawn stepped over to him closing the distance and hugged him tightly. She hadn’t even realised she had started crying until she felt the wetness run down her cheeks and her neck. She wiped her tears on his tie. Rather politely Lassiter pretended not to notice, just like he pretended not to notice her trembling in his arms, a mix of residual fear of Lassiter’s rejection and relief that he hadn’t cast her aside.

Even in times when her thoughts began to spiral, and she lay awake, fuelled by the fear of what would happen if Lassiter found out the truth of her not-so psychic, psychic abilities, Shawn had never allowed herself to consider the possibility he would accept her, lies and all. She had imagined every perceivable rejection, renunciation and dismissal, every expression of revulsion and disgust and betrayal. She had gut wrenching nightmares about him leaving her, rejecting her for her untruths. But here she stood, in Lassiter’s arms, accepted and understood.

A wall that Shawn had thought would always exist between her and Lassiter had just been sent tumbling down. And another hurdle in their improbable relationship had been overcome. 

Lassiter didn’t break out of the hug, despite its obvious inappropriate workplace violation. He placed a small kiss on the top of her head, and pressed his cheek to Shawn’s hair.

‘I’m so sorry Shawn,’ he said, his voice softer than Shawn had ever heard it.

Lassiter looked pained at his loss of control moments before. He worked through his pride and his ego to articulate what he was feeling. If Shawn could make herself uncomfortable for his sake, he could at the very least reciprocate.

‘I wasn’t truly mad at you Shawn,’ Lassiter said gruffly into Shawn’s hair. ‘My emotions got the best of me and you were an easy target. ’

‘I know. I understand the pressure you’ve been under.’

‘That doesn’t excuse it,’ he said quietly.

‘Then listen to what I have to say,’ she said, just as softly.

How quick their anger had turned to whispers and caresses.

‘Well,’ Lassiter said slowly. ‘If you think we were wrong in arresting LaFleur, tell me, as un-psychically as possible, what your theory is.’

Shawn automatically put her hand to her temple, ready to explain her theory.

Lassiter took her hand with a tutting sound.

‘I said enough of the psychic mumbo jumbo, Spencer.’

Lassiter kept hold of Shawn’s hand so she didn’t get any funny ideas or try to do it again. At least like this she would be less likely to jump around and be a pain in Lassiter’s ass.

Shawn’s hand had entwined with his so easily, so familiarly. Her hands were soft, one hand in his own and the other tenderly around the back of his neck. With her body held against his Lassiter felt more relaxed than he had in days. She grounded him and none too gently reminded him that though he had holed himself up in the evidence room, a prison of his own creation, he was not alone in solving this case.

Shawn closed her eyes, leaning into Lassiter’s embrace, and with a slow but steadying breath she shared her theory.


	15. Chapter 15

‘Cecelia LaFleur. We need to turn our attention to her,’ Shawn Spencer said, her voice a little muffled as she remained enveloped in the comforting arms of Carlton Lassiter. Sure, it would have been easier to explain out of his embrace, but right now there was no better place to be.

‘We’ve all been working off the assumption that when her husband Henri died he left Cecelia money and the businesses he ran. Except that’s not exactly how it happened. See, Henri LaFleur had this big dream that his son would inherit the businesses and the money when he was able, and take on the great LaFleur legacy that Henri had left behind. Just listen to any interview he ever gave. It’s as clear as day. But Henri also wanted his son to go and have some life experience and gain some maturity before the time came for him to take over the businesses. So, just as it was stated in Henri’s will, Cecelia remained in control of the company and the money for the time being. Henri LaFleur’s Last Will and Testament was never announced to the media, and was kept private by the family. Everyone presumed that Cecelia inherited everything and that was the end of that.’

‘Go on,’ Lassiter said, not quite following just yet.

‘So Cecelia was in control of the family business and Henri’s money. Grant grew older and started to come into his own fortune. He started to give Cecelia and his sisters a monthly allowance. He’s nice like that, and he loves his momma and family is important. It’s a habit he continued on from his father. Even though Cecilia isn’t reliant on Grant’s allowances like Trish and Tamara are, because she still had the remaining wealth from Henri, she accepted his money. That’s important.’

‘So she worried that the purse strings would get tightened when Victor married Grant?’

‘Considerably. And, not only that, but she would also lose her only big form of income, the family businesses. She was reliant on staying the majority shareholder, with Grant continuing to help in running the businesses. After all, when Henri died she had almost driven LaFleur Industries into the ground. It stagnated and she didn’t have the know-how to bring the company up to the level of its modern day competitors. The businesses only found their feet again when Grant took over. Cecelia couldn’t run the businesses alone, that's for sure. She’s never worked a day in her life and she couldn’t guarantee that without Grant the companies would keep earning money. Sure he gave her an allowance but it wouldn't be enough. She clearly isn’t one to adhere to a strict budget. I’m tellin’ ya, look at her finances. Even with an allowance, she’d be broke in less than a couple of years. I’d bet Gus’ Barbie collection on it.’

‘So it all comes down to money,’ Lassiter said. It was what he had expected, but had been so far unable to prove.

‘We all knew that a lot of people would get a lot richer from the death of Victor Fabrik but I’d been looking at this case the wrong way around. This murder wasn’t about making a lot of money. It was about Cecelia _maintaining access_ to the wealth she currently had a right to. As long as Grant LaFleur remained unable to fulfil the stipulation in Henri LaFleur’s will, Cecelia would remain the majority shareholder of the business and the person who has chief ownership of whatever remains Henri’s considerable wealth.’

‘And that stipulation is?’ Lassiter asked. He knew that Shawn couldn’t help but keep him on the hook, wigging for an answer, despite her previous rushing to inform him of what she had learned.

Shawn had a flair for her dramatic that even now, when her only audience was him, she couldn’t fail to supress. Shawn’s enthusiasm was palpable. Her smile grew naturally as she shared her thoughts with him.

‘Oh you’re going to like this Lassie. This stipulation was _Grant LaFleur had to be legally married_ before he could inherit his family business.’

‘Legally married?’

‘Come on, think about it! It makes so much sense. Henri died when Grant was a child, he didn’t know that his son was gay and wouldn’t have been following the heteronormative narrative. It wasn’t meant to be a way to keep his son from his inheritance, but for years that’s what it was. Cecelia had never worried about Grant coming into his inheritance before. I mean, for years, only a civil union was possible, not a legal marriage. But now gay marriage has been legalised Grant was going to cement his love and union to Victor through the eyes of the church and the state. That changed everything for Cecelia. ‘

Lassiter broke from their shared embrace gently and moved to the stack of files and paperwork he had been working his way through when Shawn had first stepped into the evidence room. He pulled out a file and flipped through it quickly before he pulled out the sheets he was looking for.

‘ _I, Henri LaFleur_ ,’ Lassiter began to read, _‘of sound mind and body hereby declare that on my passing my shares and my fortune shall be passed to my oldest and only son and heir, Grant Henri LaFleur upon the time of his marriage. Until this time my company shares shall remain in the possession of my wife Cecelia Jean LaFleur._ ’

‘So she had been working off the assumption that money would be in her hands forever. After all, it specifies a _marriage_ , not a _union_ or a _partnership_. She could certainly afford a lawyer to insist it was so.’

‘But their wedding would have been a marriage, and Grant would have stood to inherit everything,’ Lassiter said, reading the will carefully. He could see the logic growing in Shawn’s increasingly plausible theory.

‘Cecelia clearly loves her children,’ Shawn said, getting excited to explain how the pieces fell into place. ‘She loves them, but she doesn’t want to give Grant that money. She lives an expensive, and I mean expensive lifestyle and she’s been burning through the family funds for decades. But she knows what she needs to do. She doesn’t want to kill Grant. No, she cares for him too much. So she kills his soon-to-be husband.

‘No wedding, no husband, no marriage.

‘Then throw people off the scent with the threat of this possibly being a homophobic attack, or greedy family wanting to inherit his money and no one will ever realise the real motive was ending the marriage before it ever legally began,’ Shawn said. With wide eyes, Shawn could almost see the scene unfold before her, flashes of the evidence she had encountered, suddenly seen in a crystal clarity.

Lassiter looked thoughtful for a moment.

‘How sure are you that your theory is correct, Spencer?’

‘Ninety percent…’ she paused.

‘Maybe seventy percent….

‘We’re talking like sixty-five percent with zero percent precipitation.’

Lassiter frowned.

‘This isn’t a game Spencer. I’ll be honest, I would rather join a hippy commune than deal with these mega-rich entitled bozos and their tight lipped lawyers for another minute. Not to mention I’ve had enough interaction with these snooping reporters and paparazzi to last me a lifetime and then some. The sooner this case is solved, the better, but if you’re wrong about this, or this is just a little _hunch_ of yours, this is only going to end badly. That’s not only for me and you, but for O’Hara, the Chief and the whole damn station. These are powerful people with powerful connections.’

‘I just need to confront Cecelia, shake her confidence a little bit. But I’m not allowed on the case. No psychics allowed.’

Lassiter half whispered the word psychic after Shawn somewhat disbelievingly. Perhaps impressed that Shawn had finally come clean to him about the truth.

Shawn saw him do so.

‘No one can ever know,’ she said nervously.

Lassiter gripped Shawn’s hand reassuringly and Shawn felt her shoulders relax.

‘I never thought I’d say this Spencer, but I trust you,’ Lassiter said. ‘Let’s go pay Cecelia LaFleur a visit at home, before she makes her appearance at the station.’

Shawn’s eyes lit up with excitement and something that Lassiter couldn’t quite read as she placed both her hands on either side of his face and kissed Lassiter joyously.

With her soft lips pressed to Lassiter’s slightly dryer ones, Shawn was suddenly very aware that it was just the two of them in a quiet and secluded room. Filled with shelves upon shelves of carefully catalogued evidence it felt small, intimate, as if it was a secret space, created just for this moment and the union of their lips.

‘We should come down to the evidence room more often Lassie,’ Shawn said, voice dropping to a whisper as their mouths parted.

‘It’s so nice and quiet down here. So private-’

Lassiter cut of that thought by turning his head away from her with an embarrassed cough.

‘Need I remind you Spencer, that this is a place of work? My place of work might I add.’

‘I need no reminding at all. Though perhaps I should remind you that Psych offices are my place of work and that didn’t stop you when you…’

Shawn didn’t feel the need to finish that story when she saw the red slowly growing on Lassiter’s face like a mercury thermometer. She trailed off with a smile.

‘I’ll meet you at the estate, Lassie,’ Shawn said as she made her way upstairs.

Shawn’s self-satisfied grin, like she was the cat who got the cream, and Lassister’s ruddy scowl when they left the now too cramped evidence room, just moments apart, was attributed by the other cops as Shawn’s smugness that she had won another argument against the Head Detective and Lassiter’s continued rage at Shawn’s very presence.

Sometimes, Shawn loved the deception.


	16. Chapter 16

After a stern warning from the Chief to stay away from the case, Shawn had decided it would be too suspicious to travel to the LaFleur estate with Lassiter. After all, Lassiter, much like Shawn, was already in hot water over this case. It would be the final nail in the coffin if he were to be caught returning to the scene of the crime with a psychic detective in tow.

So instead, Shawn donned her helmet and took her bike over to the estate, driving through the hordes of media, forcing her way through the crowds towards the sprawling gates of the property, which were surprisingly open.

Shawn reasoned that it was most likely in preparation for Cecelia LaFleur to travel through. That was a good sign. Cecelia hadn’t left the mansion yet.

Despite the open gates, the crowds of reporters, news vans and paparazzo kept their distance, never quite breaching over the line into the family estate, if only barely. It was like a wave, almost but not quite breaking over the rocks, but pushing the limits right to the edge. Their ever present feral curiosity slowed Shawn’s progress through the crowd essentially to a halt. She was accosted with questions, and physically jostled as she tried to break through the formation. In the end Shawn slowed her bike to a stop and abandoned it in among the masses of news vehicles. She pushed up the kickstand so it stood on its own, put her helmet on the motorcycle's seat and walked to the gate. The security guard Shawn had met in the days before recognised her, nodded, and let her through.

It was a bold move, to show her face so visibly to the crowd who were practically clamouring over each other, shoving cameras and microphones towards her as she elbowed her way through. They yelled at her, demanding information and she knew that she had been recognised but time was of the essence and she could only hope that the Chief was doing better and more urgent things than watching the live news coverage of the estate.

After battling through the gates, Shawn walked to the back entrance of the mansion house, where she and Lassiter had agreed to meet. A short while later she was joined by Lassiter, whose car had made it much more easily through the crowd than Shawn‘s now abandoned motorcycle.

‘Where’s Jules?’ Shawn asked as Lassiter stepped out of the car.

‘O’Hara’s back at the station, there has to be a detective on hand to make statements and talk to lawyers. It’s best she stay there. She’s more of a … people person.’

Lassiter said _people person_ in the same way one might say _interpretative dance instructor._ As if the very notion was unfathomable to him.

He frowned, more so than he had been frowning before.

‘Not to mention, this isn’t exactly above board, Spencer.’

Shawn didn’t make a witty comment at that. She knew now that Lassiter had distanced himself from her and got lost headfirst into solving this crime because he believed his incompetence at protecting Victor Fabrik had caused his death to occur in the first place.

Just as Shawn had gotten drawn deeply into this case, so had he. They both just needed the truth to be revealed and justice to be served.

The pair walked around to the front entrance of the large mansion house. The elaborate and heavy double doors were open. Shawn knocked the door as she peeked her head into the entranceway. There seemed to be no one around.

‘The coast is clear,’ she said.

‘I can’t go in without someone’s permission or a warrant,’ Lassiter said stiffly.

‘Are you a vampire or something?’

‘Vampires, need permission to enter a home. Cops need reasonable grounds. I’m a cop, Spencer.’

‘Really?’ she said with light surprise. ‘And after all this time I just thought you were the guy who went from precinct to precinct and changed their water coolers.’

‘Cop,’ Lassiter repeated. ‘I have a gun and a badge.’

‘Do you have a warrant?’

‘Do you think if I had a warrant I’d be hanging out here with you, Spencer?’

Shawn smiled.

‘Aww,’ she cooed. ‘You wanna hang out with me?’

‘That was an insult, Spencer,’ Lassiter grumbled, irritated.

‘Would you wanna hang out with me if I could get us in there?’

Lassiter looked at her, his eyes narrowed.

‘Nothing illegal.’

Shawn gasped in mock offence.

‘Lassie, would I-?’

‘You would,’ he interrupted. ‘Now get us in here before it’s night time. Come on, time’s ticking- Hey, what are you doing?’

Shawn had knelt down for a moment to pick up a small stone. It was a piece of gravel, around the size of a penny, that had meandered from its home, on the driveway, most likely stuck on someone’s shoe, and had ended up on the porch, right beside the door.

‘Did you lock your car?’ she asked, innocently.

‘Huh? I think so?’ Lassiter turned to push the button on his keys and check the flashing of the lights.

There was an audible crash which caused Lassiter to spin back around to Shawn, whose expression was still schooled, carefully angelic. Too angelic.

It didn’t suit her.

‘What the hell was that Spencer?’ he growled.

‘I don’t know. It could be something dangerous. Maybe we should go inside, make sure nothing bad has happened.’

Lassiter scowled, but it didn’t quite mask the amusement in his cool blue eyes.

They entered the hall, towards the source of the noise. A painting had fallen off the wall and landed directly onto a small bust statuette, knocking it and its plinth over. It had created a relatively big clatter in the echoing emptiness of the hallway.

Sitting neatly among the fallen art, plinth and bust lay a small pebble, and a remarkably familiar one at that. It had to have been fifty yards maybe more, and Shawn had hit just where she needed with pinpoint accuracy.

She had this knack of surprising him in the most amazing ways.

‘That's one hell of an arm you have on you, Shawn,’ Lassiter murmured, almost to himself.

‘What was that?’ Shawn said, with a Cheshire cat grin.

Lassiter knew damn well Shawn had heard what he said.

‘I said that’s probably a million dollars of damages there, Spencer. Maybe two. It’s lucky it was an accident. ’

Shawn reached over and retrieved the pebble, tossing it away from the small mountain of art.

‘Lucky,’ she repeated.

She could see the smile threaten to grow on Lassiter’s lips.

‘Well we’re here now. Better make sure the lady of the house is safe,’ Lassiter said, making the most of his reasonable grounds to enter the mansion. He left the hallway, ready to look around.

‘She didn’t come and check the sound. Were we too late to talk to her?’ Shawn wondered aloud as they looked briefly from room to room. ‘She could be already on her way to the station.’

‘Could be,’ Lassiter replied. ‘That’d be just our luck. I’ll look upstairs, you look down here. It’ll be quicker if we split up to look around.’

‘Oh!’ Shawn exclaimed as she peeked her head around the door that lead to the large kitchen and dining area. ‘We’re in luck, Lassie.’

But Lassiter was already climbing the elegant marble staircase, and was out of earshot.

Shawn didn’t mind. She had noticed something. It wasn’t Cecelia LaFleur, so Lassiter probably didn’t care. In the far end of the room, sitting on an expensive looking metal countertop Shawn had spotted a cell phone plugged into the wall socket above, charging. Even at a distance Shawn could tell that it was the newest, top of the line phone.

Of course it would be. 

Shawn walked over to the phone, clicking the button to see the lock screen. It was a family photo of the LaFleurs on some fabulous and exotic vacation on what was undoubtedly a private yacht. It showed a proud mother hugging her three beautiful children.

Shawn looked at the cell phone for a moment, something jarring a little in her mind. She knew this was Cecelia LaFleur’s phone. The picture proved so. Nevertheless, like a jigsaw piece in the wrong space, Shawn just knew something was out of place. She picked up the sleek phone. It had barely a scratch on it despite the fact it had no case on it. It was thin and fragile, anyone with less wealth would be careful with it, but Shawn could tell Cecelia was someone who easily replaced cell phones. Even just a few days ago she had a different phone.

Click.

Another puzzle piece slid perfectly into place.

_It’s all making sense now_ , Shawn thought as she put the cell phone back onto the countertop. It tapped, metal on metal creating an unpleasant noise, but Shawn barely noticed.

_I just need to check something. That little piece of fern I’d seen at the top of the stairs-_

There was the clicking of footsteps as someone entered the room. The clicking of designer, impossible to affordable high heels and not the softer steps of well worn-in leather oxfords favoured by the Head Detective Shawn had grown so fond of.

‘Who are you and what are you doing here?’ a soft, alluring voice asked from the doorway.

‘Cecelia,’ Shawn said as she turned around from the countertop. 

‘Ah, the psychic. Of course.’

Cecelia LaFleur, dressed in a skin-tight fantasy of a dress, looked like an angel sent from above. Her hair formed a black halo around her head, almost glowing in the kitchen's plentiful natural lighting. Her handbag was designer and undoubtedly cost more than the SBPD's annual budget. She said _psychic_ with a strain of humour in her voice, as if the only reason she had remembered was because it was particularly amusing. It was like Shawn had previously introduced herself as a professional Teddy Bear Surgeon.

Shawn suddenly realised that it was like what people had been telling her all along. The only thing beautiful about Cecelia LaFleur was her appearance.

_The showdown begins,_ Shawn thought.

‘Why are you in my house, psychic?’

‘To prove you killed Victor Fabrik,’ Shawn said bluntly.

Cecelia’s come-hither eyes widened innocently.

She feigned innocence well. But Shawn was a professional liar.

‘I knew why you did it Cecelia. But until a moment ago I didn’t know how you did it. But I do now.’

‘It couldn’t possibly have been me,’ Cecelia said, dismissing the idea with a wave of a carefully manicured hand. ‘I have no reason to have wanted him dead. And anyway, look at me, Victor was a giant compared to me. How do you think I could have dragged a man out of his room and pushed him down the flight of stairs?’

‘You didn’t. That’s how.’

Cecelia looked at her disbelievingly.

‘Go on then, psychic or whatever you are. Tell me how you claim I did it. I’ll sue you for slander.’

‘Thanks,’ Shawn said dryly. ‘I think I will. There were tiny marks on Victor’s neck that looked like bruises from the fall. Two tiny marks equal in size. I almost missed them at first. I’m sure everyone at the scene did too. Victor’s body wasn’t a pretty sight. But now I know what they were. Burns, from a Taser. One disguised like a cell phone, the kind that women keep in their bags for protection.’

Shawn could see a single bead of sweat forming at Cecelia’s hairline, the only outward sign of distress. Her expression was thunderous and so Shawn decided to push some more.

‘Only you weren’t the one who needed protecting were you Cecelia? You lured Victor out of his room, and down the hall to the mirror. How? I don’t know. Maybe you told him you needed help zipping up the back of your dress or putting on a necklace. So you walk to the mirror by the stairs, Taser disguised as a cell phone in your hand. Your dress had no pockets so it wouldn’t have seemed out of place.

‘Victor helped you and you turn around to look at him. Then instead of thanking him, you held the Taser to his neck. Before he knew what was happening his body crumpled from the shocks of the Taser. It did all the hard work for you. He spasmed, and his body fell down the stairs violently. You walked away, all your problems solved.’

Shawn could see the façade slip a little on Cecelia’s face. She was sweating a little more, her face looking shinier. Yet her expression had relaxed, moving from thunderous to unreadable. So Shawn pushed a little more. Poking and prodding the fire, unsure of what would happen if the flames grew too high.

‘But you made a mistake. A stupid mistake. You didn’t have the time to figure out where to stash the Taser. You couldn’t hide it in your room or the cops would find it. You couldn’t leave it at the scene or it could be traced back to you, or at the very least let the police know that this wasn’t a hate crime or a crime of passion like you wanted them to think. So you kept it on your person. You even had it when you were in the room with the cops after Victor’s body had been found and before they announced it was murder. Come on Cecelia, did you really think you could get away with something that brazen?’

Cecelia blinked slowly. Out of her designer bag she pulled a less than designer gun. It looked bulky in her small hands, but she held it rock steady.

Shawn’s body tightened. Every muscle had tensed at the sight of the weapon in the hands of the woman right in front of her. Shawn had been an idiot not to have considered that she may have been armed.

‘So what if you think is that what happened? You have no proof, it’s all guesswork.’

Shawn laughed softly at that, an act of pure bravado.

‘We have plenty of proof, Cecelia. If the spirits weren’t enough then the burn marks from the Taser will show what really happened.’

Shawn failed to disclose that due to the rush job on the autopsy only the cause of death had been identified. There had been nothing in the report about Taser marks. But Woody would confirm it anyway.

That is if Shawn could make it out of this alive.

‘And also, I mean, surely it goes without saying that the gun you’re holding in front of me is also a pretty big red flag,’ Shawn said with a confidence she didn’t truly feel. ‘I mean it’s not really the actions of an innocent party.’

‘It’s self-defence,’ Cecelia said innocently. ‘After all my future son-in-law was murdered in my home just days ago. I’m scared out of my wits, jumping at my own shadow and here you are, breaking into my house without my knowledge. It’s not my fault if I shoot you. You could have been the murderer and I didn’t want you to get me too. Or perhaps I saw the mess you made in the hallway, all that destroyed art. Maybe I thought you were a burglar, here to prey on a defenceless little widow. ’

So it seemed that Shawn wasn’t the only woman who enjoyed weaving a lie.

Shawn shrugged.

‘If you think that would hold up in court.’

‘I pay my lawyers enough that they can make _anything_ stand up in court.’

Cecelia pointed the gun from Shawn’s stomach to her forehead. Her arms still as steady and assured as ever. Her manicured thumb cocked the hammer. It was an intimidation tactic but it worked.

Shawn put her hands up, swallowing thickly. Her throat was tight.

The slow movement made Cecelia smile a perfect smile, complete with polished white teeth. Shawn felt like an antelope who had suddenly encountered the toothy grin of a lioness. 

‘This is what you’re going to do,’ Cecelia said. She knew she had the upper hand.

‘Turn around and go to the door just behind you. Then open it and climb down the stairs. I’ll escort you out the back entrance and to the station, where you’re going to use that snake-charmer tongue of yours to convince the cops that it was a random act of violence from a radical protester who wanted to make a statement. Then my son and I will walk away scot-free.’

‘I didn’t come here alone,’ Shawn threatened.

‘But you’re alone right now, psychic.’

Shawn didn’t want to turn around. Her legs were trembling. She knew where the door was. She remembered the layout of the house perfectly. It was around eight steps away. It led to a flight of stairs down to the basement level, a set of plain wooden stairs that Shawn and Gus had climbed down just a few days earlier, wandering around lazily with a mouth filled of hor d’oeuvres. It would be quiet down there.

Quiet, private and the type of place where gunshot could potentially go unheard.

But what choice did she have?

Cecelia would shoot her before she could call out for help.

Shawn turned around, her steps heavy. Her reactions were slow and her body didn’t feel like her own, even though her mind was whirring at lightning speed. She heard everything, the ticking of a clock in another room, the soft steps of her sneakers and she walked towards the door, the clicking of Cecelia’s heels behind her. The lock mechanism on the door clicked as she twisted the handle. The door creaked almost inaudibly as it opened to reveal the darkness beyond.

Shawn could hear nothing down there but the distant rattling of a washing machine. There was the quiet rustling of Cecelia’s hand searching through her handbag for something. Shawn wondered if that meant she had lowered her gun, and created a potential opening, but she was hesitant to turn around. Cecelia was close enough to her that she didn’t have to aim to hit Shawn with a bullet, and catching her off guard could only work out badly for Shawn.

But Shawn could die anyway if she didn’t at least try.

Right now Shawn had her back to Cecelia, a position she did not want to be in. Attempting to use the element of surprise she began to spin around quickly, but as she turned she heard a buzz, right before her body was forced rigid by the blindingly painful currents administered by the Taser whose prongs were now impaled in her side.

Shawn thought she was screaming but no sound would emerge, she couldn’t even close her eyes as Cecelia kicked her down the stairs, prepared to kill her in exactly the same way she had killed Victor Fabrik.

Shawn fell down, into the darkness below.

She hit a number of the stairs on the way down, each culminating in an increasing bout of agony.

Finally, she lay at the bottom of the stairs, winded but not dead.

She couldn’t breathe.

She couldn’t move.

It was as if someone had made her body body work in slow motion. She wanted to get up, run, but she couldn’t. Her entire body was too weak to even pick herself up. She couldn’t even lift a finger. She was paralysed with the pain. Her only blessing was that she had managed to protect her head in the fall. Without it, she would surely have died.

She heard a shriek from the top of the stairs and the panicked garbling speech of a distressed woman. It was followed by the quick footsteps of someone approaching.

‘Oh god! She’s fallen down the stairs!’ was all Shawn could hear before the doorway darkened with the shadow of someone looking down.

‘Shawn,’ the voice shouted. 

It was panicked but unmistakably Lassiter.

Shawn wanted to scream a warning but she couldn’t. The panicked shriek ‘Carlton!’ that failed to leave her lips was in actuality less than a whispering groan. Nothing could be heard. It was a faint breath.

The flash of light from above and the crackling buzz told Shawn she was too late as Lassiter was subjected to the same fate as she had been.

All Shawn could do was watch, winded, aching and unable to help.

Lassiter was unprepared for the attack. He hadn’t seen it coming. He hadn’t known Cecelia had a gun or a Taser. He hadn’t known he shouldn’t have approached her. She fooled him, just as she had fooled everyone else.

Lassiter’s fall down the stairs was violent. He hadn’t raised his arms in self-defence, what had ended up protecting Shawn’s head and neck as she fell. His head made a dense thump against the staircase, a sickening thud.

It was the sound of skull hitting wood.

Shawn felt sick at the noise. But the violent impact had not slowed Lassiter’s trajectory and he continued down the stairs, limp like an oversized ragdoll. He landed heavily on Shawn’s supine from, suffocating her as he took the air from her lungs on impact.

The door above closed, taking with it the only source of light.

It left Shawn in utter darkness.

The click of the lock was deafening in the silence.


	17. Chapter 17

Lassiter’s crumpled form thumped onto Shawn who lay on the cool ground of the basement. The jolt of agony Lassiter’s landing caused throughout her entire body was the spark she needed to feel capable of movement again, crashing her back to functionality, albeit slowly. She managed to twitch her fingers and toes, some mobility finally returning.

She lay on her back, winded but no longer frozen. The concrete, unfinished floor was uncomfortable, chilling and unpleasant. She could feel the cool seeping through the layers of her clothes. Lassiter was on top of her, his larger frame covering her own, he was crushing her, and making it almost impossible to breath. She had been unable to do anything but watch Cecelia LaFleur exact her cruel punishment on the unsuspecting Lassiter, tasering him, just as she had done to Shawn moments earlier. Shawn had to watch Lassiter fall down the stairs, limp like a crash test dummy, unable to turn her head away. She saw every brutal second of his descent. His every painful collision with the stairs injured him further. The shock of the taser prevented him from protecting himself during the fall. He had been less than defenceless. Even without an eidetic memory, Shawn knew she would never forget that sight.

Even without the pained seconds she needed to recover from the impact of Lassiter’s bruising landing, Shawn struggled to move. But she could move now. 

She _had_ to move now.

Shawn twisted and writhed, pushing slowly at Lassiter’s body but she couldn’t move him. Touching his face Shawn could feel that his eyes were closed and she could feel a warm liquid soaking through her shirt and t-shirt onto the skin of her neck, where Lassiter’s head lay. He was unconscious but breathing, his body dead weight. Shawn breathed shakily.

He was alive. 

Thank god.

Shawn didn’t have the time for relief to fully sink in, as panic grew. It had to be blood that soaked into Shawn’s shirt and warmed her neck in an uncomfortable way. She had to get out from under Lassiter and check he was ok. She had moved a little, testing her mobility enough to feel confident that she could move most of her body, if painfully. Very painfully. Yet her movements were slow and awkward. She was too scared to push Lassiter off roughly for fear whatever injuries he had sustained would only be made worse.

It took time, too much time, but Shawn finally wiggled her way to freedom after carefully cradling Lassiter’s head to minimise all movement in his head and neck. Once free Shawn removed her checked shirt and crumpled it up and used it as an impromptu pillow in an attempt to keep Lassiter’s head and neck still. Then after a second’s hesitation she moved his body slowly into the recovery position. He was still breathing and she needed to keep his airways clear. The risk of him choking was probably higher than his chance of spinal injury in the fall. He hadn’t hit his neck in the fall but he had hit his head.

Free, Shawn realised that her trip down the stairs had been more brutal than she had thought in her first assessment of her body. Her joints her screaming, tense and aching, and her entire right hand side, the side she had landed most heavily on, was already in agony. Her right leg wasn’t moving as naturally as it should be, a white hot wave of pain reared its head when she tried to straighten it out, the pain doubled to almost unbearable when she put weight on it. Right now walking wasn’t her priority, helping Lassiter was, so she didn’t try to stand up. Instead she pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and prayed it wasn’t crushed in her fall.

Just proving that today was not going to be her lucky day, the murder attempt just moments ago not being enough of a sign, Shawn’s cell refused to respond. She pressed its buttons in the hopes enough fiddling would elicit a response. It remained unresponsive. She couldn’t see in the low light of the basement, but she could feel the cracks which now covered the screen, with splinters of glass raised in places. She cursed the fact that she had been born right handed because it had led to her phone being on the right hand side of her body when she fell. She dropped the cell phone, now knowing it was useless. It landed with a clatter on the ground and she started. The noise was much louder than she had expected, despite the relatively small distance it fell. She froze and listened for any sound, any sign that Cecelia may have heard the noise.

Shawn cursed her short temper; this was not the time to let her emotions rule her head. One wrong move and she could get Lassiter and her killed, for real this time. She didn’t think Cecelia was the type to let loose ends go uncut. 

Shawn lent over Lassiter, who was by her side, and rifled in his jacket pockets, pulling out the detective’s phone which was thankfully undamaged. She keyed in the password Lassiter assumed she didn’t know, too stressed to gloat or mock Lassiter’s choice of password. She lit up his phone using the flash as a torch and looked frantically over his unconscious form. The wound on his head was dark and bleeding frighteningly. Shawn, trying to think rationally, knew that head wounds often looked worse than they were, so that was why there was so much blood. But Shawn also knew, rationally or not, that being tasered and thrown down a flight of stairs could never be a painless procedure. The fact that Shawn had emerged bruised but with nothing that appeared, at the moment at least, seriously wrong from the fall didn’t mean that Lassiter would be so lucky.

It hadn’t worked out fantastically for Victor Fabrik.

Lassiter groaned and Shawn started. She wouldn’t have heard the soft noise if she hadn’t been practically leaning on top of him. She rifled in his jacket pockets once again and pulled out his handkerchief. She pressed it firmly to his head, using the light to illuminate her actions. Lassiter groaned louder in pain.

‘Lassie, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I know it hurts, but you’ve hit your head, and I need to slow the bleeding,’ she whispered as loud as she dared.

He groaned.

‘You were pushed down the stairs. Do you understand? You’ve been injured.’

Shawn wasn’t convinced Lassiter was fully responsive to what she was telling him. Shawn put his phone in her mouth, using one hand to continue applying pressure to his head wound. With her other hand Shawn opened Lassiter’s eyes gently. His pupils were wide and unevenly dilated. He tried to look away from the light.

Lassiter tried to shoo away her hands. It was clear he wanted to stand up but his movements were slow and uncoordinated.

Concussion.

Shawn moved her hands and let him close his eyes again. She slowly and carefully helped him sit upright. He seemed at least capable of that.

‘Carlton, you’ve been injured. You were pushed down the stairs by Cecelia, the woman who murdered Victor Fabrik,’ Shawn tried once more. ‘You’ve hit your head and I think you have a concussion.’

Shawn’s words seemed to register as much as the first time. It was like throwing a bouncy ball at a wall. The words had little impact on Lassiter, and they didn’t seem to stick. His main focus was trying to close his eyes from the bright light Shawn was subjecting him to.

Shawn sighed and closed her eyes.

The room went dark.

Not unusual.

Shawn had found before that closing her eyes did have the tendency to make the room go dark.

What was unusual was that when she opened her eyes the room remained dark. She touched Lassiter’s phone. No response. His phone had died too. Great.

When it rains it pours.

‘Phone’s dead,’ Shawn said, somewhat redundantly.

‘Call for help. Use your phone,’ Lassiter said slowly, as if the words had finally sunk in.

‘I wish I could, Lassie, but my phone was another victim in the fall. We need to get out of here and call the cops on a house phone.’

Lassiter said nothing in response.

Shawn, panicked, nipped his arm.

‘Ouch,’ he mumbled.

Okay, at least he was responsive.

‘Stay there Lassie, don’t try to move. Keep your head and your neck still. I’m going to see if I can get us out of here.’

Lassiter grumbled something inaudible but at least he was trying to reply to her.

Shawn gripped the wall she had been slammed into when it brought an end to her fall, biting her lip to keep in a whimper of agony as she climbed up back into an upright standing position. She had to climb the stairs, and see if the coast was clear.

The climbing of the stairs had been slow and painful, but not as sore as it had been initially falling down them. Every step she climbed as silently as possible. She needed to create as little noise as she could, lest Cecelia hear that her murder attempts were not as successful as her previous endeavour. Each step felt like an eternity, creeping deliberately at a snail’s pace. With adrenaline pumping through her body, heightening her senses and numbing her pain, she wanted to climb the stairs quickly, this tentativeness was killing her. When her heart was pounding in her ears, a staccato racing tempo, she almost wanted to make a mad dash out of there, but Shawn wasn’t acting alone, and her concern for the dazed detective lying on the ground behind her caused her to steady her breath and continue her cautious and glacial pace.

Finally, she made it to the top of the staircase with nary a creak of the stairs to alert anyone of her presence. It was as she had suspected, the door had indeed been locked, and she couldn’t force it open. Her body was already too bruised and battered to try to force the door open by throwing her weight against it and Lassiter who would normally have been eager to kick down a door was barely in any helpful condition.

He needed to get to hospital and he could only do that if they could get out of here alive.

Shawn climbed down the stairs slowly, leaning on the handrail, holding it with a deathgrip. Her descent took just as long as her ascent, but again she managed to traverse the stairs in almost complete silence. Her mouth was filling with blood as she bit her cheek, her lips, her tongue, anything to supress the noises of pain.

‘We need to find another way out,’ Shawn said as she leaned down to Lassiter again.

‘How?’ Lassiter said. The pain seemed to be clearing his mind a little.

‘I can do it. I can use my psychic ability to guide us out.’

‘I thought we were past that these days,’ Lassiter said, his teeth clenched together as the pain continued to grow. He adjusted his position a little, sitting up a little straighter, and then hissing as it hurt more.

‘No more lies Shawn,’ he groaned as he leaned back against the wall.

‘I’m sorry. It’s habit.’

‘Are you hurt too?’ Lassiter’s speech was slow. Shawn couldn’t tell if it was pain preventing him from speaking or the concussion. Or at least, his suspected concussion. Shawn wasn’t a doctor. Anyone with any real medical knowledge would probably have insisted Lassiter kept lying on the floor until help arrived.

But with two dead cell phones and a woman upstairs who thought Shawn and Lassiter were just as dead, help wasn’t going to arrive. Screw the cavalry. Shawn was all they had.

Shawn groaned as she sat down on the ground beside him. She used her hands to gauge where Lassiter was sitting so she could sit shoulder to shoulder with him.

‘Not as much as you. But I hurt pretty bad right now.’

She reached up to his head to check he had kept holding the handkerchief to his wound. He grabbed the hand when it touched his forehead gently, not to stop her movement but just to hold her hand.

It was the kind of movement that sometimes Shawn was desperate that he wouldn’t just do in private movements. It was comforting, and Shawn latched on to the brief glimpse of unconscious intimacy. She was scared. Terrified.

Lassiter had been hurt, she couldn’t tell how badly. They were trapped down here, doors sealed. They needed to get to a hospital. Cecelia was still out there, Shawn hadn’t heard a car leave the grounds. There had been no sound of a car’s engine or the tell-tale sound of tires on gravel. So she could return at any moment. And she and Lassiter were down in this basement, more defenceless than fish in a barrel.

She tightened her grip on Lassiter’s hand. Her lifeline.

She had to make sure he was safe. She had to protect him. She had to get him out of this alive.

Shawn leaned on his shoulder for a long moment, taking comfort in his presence as she formulated her plan.

‘Are you still able to fire a gun?’

‘Fire?’ Lassiter said slowly. ‘Fire? Yes. Aim? Not so much.’

‘Why?’

‘I’m seeing double.’

When Lassiter had opened his eyes when he regained consciousness he didn’t know if he was in heaven or hell when he saw two Shawn’s standing above him in her blood soaked t-shirt.

‘So your _psychic ability_ can get us out of here. But between you and me, what is it really?’

Even in a life and death situation, Lassiter still had the time to say _psychic ability_ like it was something unpleasant he had pulled from his shower drain.

Shawn laughed a quiet exhale, a huff of breath.

‘Gus and I have explored every inch of this mansion. I can remember the way out. It won’t be super easy though. Sure I could turn on the lights but the cover of darkness is probably best. Cecelia might realise we survived the fall. She probably thinks we suffered the same fate as poor Victor.’

Shawn could remember where the lights were of course. But more importantly she also remembered that if she could make her way to the other side of the room, she would find a door that led to the outside. If she could remember all the junk and obstacles she had noticed the last time she had been down here, she and Lassiter could probably go through quietly and without attracting Cecelia’s attention.

‘Lassie, I need you to stand up. And I need you to trust me.’

‘I trust you,’ Lassiter said easily and Shawn tried very hard not to blame it on the concussion.

Shawn crawled agonisingly up the wall to a standing position and managed, eventually, to pull Lassiter to his feet. She wrapped her arms around his waist, helping him stay upright. He in turn put one arm over her shoulder, the other holding the damp handkerchief to his head. They stepped slowly, each step, every creeping movement forward, urgent but unrushed. They pretended like they had all the time in the world whilst acutely aware of every noise they heard above them. They were desperate to get away from the crazed woman with a taser, gun and very good motive to kill them both. Here they were, in a basement, injured, dazed and as good as defenceless and both were trying to pretend like the situation didn’t scare them one jot.

For once their stubbornness was proving useful.

Shawn whispered slowly as they stepped, commentating on what she remembered being around them. What to avoid walking in to so they didn’t make a noise or knock anything over to alert Cecelia.

Each step was desperately long, as if time had lost meaning in the dark. The pair ignored how each other’s breathing was too quick. How Lassiter’s tight grip on Shawn’s shoulder was something more than just weakness from the fall. How his steps were faltering, uncoordinated and unsteady. How Shawn stopped frequently to stop and listen, like an easily startled deer in a clearing. They kept walking onwards so very slowly, so very carefully until they were where Shawn thought she remembered a door.

She held out a hand, looking to grasp the door handle. When she found it, and twisted the knob her heart stopped in her chest. The door refused to open. She swallowed slowly.

‘It’s locked,’ she whispered to Lassiter.

He had guessed as much.

But what was there to do now? Shawn couldn’t pick locks or kick down doors and even Lassiter had enough sense to not try to shoot the lock out in complete darkness, whilst most likely concussed.

Shawn’s mind was whirring as she tried to remember every precious second she had spent in the room before. She tried to take her mind back to the time she had spent in the room, flashes of memory returned to her. She didn’t forget things, she had an eidetic memory but that didn’t mean her memories were fresh and at the forefront of her mind.

She cast her thoughts back.

Last time the door had been locked too. But this room was used by the working staff more than Cecelia. It was for staff to store cleaning supplies, boxes, recycling and the things so very unsavoury and unpalatable to Cecelia that she demanded they be kept out of sight and out of the main area of the house. So it stood to reason that there’d be a way to easily open and close the doors that would be nearby and accessible. Cecelia certainly wouldn’t be willing to keep coming down here daily to open and lock the door with her personal set of keys.

But Shawn couldn’t think, panic was building and clouding her thoughts, Lassiter was leaning on her more and more heavily for support. The metaphorical clock was ticking. 

She took a calming breath to think about what she had been doing in this room, where she had been. Shawn knew that two steps to the right there would be a small table with a maid’s cleaning box that the daily maid would bring from room to room to clean up the house. Next to that was a coat rack on the wall which was lined with neat aprons. Next to that there had been a key box. Shawn guided Lassiter to it, trying to remember the order of the keys.

The bottom row had been for golf carts, the row above that for the guest house. That left two rows. She could see them in her mind. There was a flash of memory. She could remember what those little labels had read. The keys should be on the second row, fourth key across. Shawn felt to the top row of keys, and counted four across, sliding her hand down to the row below.

She felt nothing.

The key wasn’t there.

Shawn’s breathing stopped for a moment.

‘What’s wrong?’ Lassiter asked. He felt her breathing still.

‘I- I can’t find the key, Lassie.’

‘My head hurts,’ he murmured thickly.

‘You were pushed down the stairs Lassie, we’re going to get help,’ Shawn said. The fear she felt about Lassiter’s condition, she kept out of her voice. ‘We just have to get out of here first.’

‘Keep calm, Spencer, you can work it out.’

There was complete trust in his slightly dazed voice. It fuelled Shawn with motivation. She could get them out of here. She had to get them out of here.

What else was there around here?

Below the apron filled rack was a washing machine so that the maids could ensure their aprons were always in tip top shape, clean and ready to wear for the next day’s work. Maybe someone had pinned the keys to their apron and forgotten to take them back off? Shawn shook the aprons and heard no metallic clinking of keys hitting keys.

Metallic clinking?

Shawn could remember something.

Before washing things most people had the tendency to check their pockets to make sure nothing untoward was washed in the pockets by accident. Shawn was not one of those people. She was a serial spare change washer, that’s why she was familiar with the noise she heard in the washing machine earlier when it was still rumbling and cleaning away. It was the noise that had almost covered up the noise of Cecelia rustling in her handbag to pull out the Taser.

It was the noise of a stray piece of metal in the machine.

Shawn walked over, leaving Lassiter to stand where he was for a moment and prayed she’d get lucky. She fumbled blindly around the top of the washing machine, but felt only what seemed to be a safety pin, three pennies and a name-badge. So she opened the washing machine and rustled in the barrel. There, among the sea of slightly damp aprons, she found two coins she thought were a nickel and a dime. Dread was spreading but when she spun the barrel of the machine she could still hear a metallic noise. She reached in a searched a bit more. She found what she had been hoping to find, the tumbling of an errant key that had made its way into the washing machine. She fished out the key and smiled widely. Success!

She walked back over to Lassiter briskly. He had been leaning heavily against the wall but she helped prop him up again.

As Shawn opened the lock and put her hand on the door handle, Lassiter unsteadily pulled out his gun. It wouldn’t be much use to him as he couldn’t aim, but only Shawn knew that. Hopefully it could be a suitable threat should they need it.

Suddenly there was a sound, tires on gravel.

The pair froze.

Too scared to even breathe, they listened paralysed.

They heard footsteps and the opening and shutting of a car door at a distance. The quick, short crackling on gravel were the sounds of heels on uneven ground, crunching through pebbles and rock.

Cecelia LaFleur was leaving.

Shawn and Lassiter stood unable to move for the longest moment. Then when the sound of the car driving away had died away completely they made their move.

Those few seconds felt like an eternity to their nerves.

When the coast was clear, Shawn opened the door more fully. The bright light was blinding when they opened the door. Shawn, in her enthusiasm and desperation had pushed the door open with more force than was necessary. It hit loudly against the wall but she couldn’t find it in her to care.

Their eyes had adjusted to their time in the dark, and the sun was burning with red hot waves. It was like heaven. The brightness, the stifling heat, it didn’t matter. Shawn and Lassiter had escaped the hellscape of the mansion house and the coast was clear.

‘We have to get to your car,’ Shawn said.

Lassiter nodded absently. He dropped his handkerchief and fished his keys out of his pocket. Shawn took the keys, helping him into the passenger side and then hobbled as quickly as she could to the driver’s side. Neither one was in any position to be driving, Lassiter was seeing double, a gaping gash on his scalp and Shawn had trouble moving her entire right side, although nothing felt broken, just bruised and extremely battered.

Shawn thrust in the keys, turned on the ignition and started to drive away. But their speedy get-away was a get-away more on the sluggish side. Her lack of control was stalling the car frequently and with her lack of easy mobility in her right foot she couldn’t work the gas pedal. Shawn could only make it to just past the gates of the estate, which were still open, before she called it quits.

‘I can’t drive this thing,’ Shawn said, her frustration no longer able to be concealed. She slammed the steering wheel with her hands.

Her only other option was smaller, quicker and a hell of a lot more stupid.

‘Get out of the car Lassie, we’re going on my bike.’

Lassiter didn’t look convinced, even with a concussion, but Shawn was already out of his car and helping him to his feet. They were thankfully alone, all the media having followed the LaFleur car, most likely to her lawyers office so that she could give a statement about the arrest of her son before she made her way to the SBPD police station. Her motorcycle was only yards away.

‘It’s louder, I know. But it’s quicker and it’s easier for me to control right now. I fell on my right side, and now something’s wrong with my leg. My motorcycle is controlled by my left hand side. As long as I can suck up any pain while steering I’ll be fine.’

Lassiter really was injured, because he let Shawn guide him to the bike, without complaint. She helped him throw his leg over it and get settled. Shawn took a second and looked around.

‘Son of a- what happened to my helmet?’

She was sure she had left in on her motorcycle seat before she entered the estate.

‘Could this day _get any damn wors-_ ’ Shawn cut off her frustrated words, miming zipping her lips shut, much to Lassiter’s somewhat muggy amusement. She didn’t want to tempt her already achingly poor luck today.

Instead she lifted her leg over her bike, groaning from the agony the movement caused. She took a second to compose herself and feel the pain recede. When she was ready she started the engine.

‘Hold on tight, Lassie’ Shawn said.

Lassiter held onto Shawn waist lightly, but when the bike started to move his grip got a lot tighter a lot quicker.

Shawn had often joked that someday she would get Lassiter to brave a trip on her motorcycle. Today it had happened, but she just wished it were under more pleasant circumstances.

They were battered, bleeding and bruised.

But they were alive.


	18. Chapter 18

It was most likely by sheer luck alone that Shawn and Lassiter managed to return to the police station on the motorcycle without suffering any more injuries. Adrenaline and pain was a heady mix and it had powered their escape, but the rush could only last so long and Shawn was starting to find it increasingly hard to keep her mind razor sharp when the ripples of pain had grown into full on tidal waves of agony as her body finally acknowledged the true extent of her injuries.

She passed streams of paparazzi standing at the gates of the police station, eager to take photos and shout questions to Cecelia LaFleur who should have been arriving at any moment. Shawn didn’t think Cecelia was stupid enough to do that, but the crowd’s distraction provided her the opportunity to drive by practically unnoticed.

Shawn drove to the back steps of the station, where she was greeted by a perplexed looking Buzz who held a coffee in one hand and a half-eaten doughnut in the other. It was a testament to the SBPD that Buzz dropped the coffee, the doughnut and the police officer stereotype quickly. He rushed over and helped Lassiter get off the motorcycle. He was slumped heavily against Shawn’s back, but he had been able to maintain his grip around her waist for the majority of the ride back to the station. The blood which had dried on his shirt looked a lot worse in the bright light of day.

Despite being aided by Buzz, Lassiter crumpled off the motorcycle in an uncoordinated mess of limbs. He was unable to stand without aid. His eyes were scrunched shut at the glaring light of the sun.

Shawn climbed off the motorcycle after Lassiter. Her body was stiff and uncooperative so it wasn’t an elegant or coordinated movement. She propped her bike up on its stand and rushed to Lassiter’s side, to help Buzz support his weight and hold him up.

Shawn, whose worry was at an all-time high, was momentarily distracted by Buzz’s pants. She wondered if he had realised that, in his speedy jump into action, he had spilled coffee all over his right pant leg. It was bizarrely comedic in a time when Shawn really didn’t feel like laughing. But Shawn realised that Buzz probably wouldn’t mind too much about the coffee stain on his pants anymore, because a severely concussed and nauseated Lassiter had just puked all over his shoes.

Buzz, in classic Buzz style, looked more concerned than disgusted or angered.

‘Is he alright? What happened to you guys?’ Buzz asked.

‘I don’t have the time to explain to you right now, man,’ Shawn said. ‘You have to give me your phone and get Jules out here like ASAP.’

Buzz helped Shawn lead Lassiter to the stairs of the building where he gently set him down on one of the steps. He had given Shawn his phone without a second of thought and ran inside to do just as Shawn had asked of him. Thank god for the Buzz McNab’s of the world.

Shawn dialled 911 and described Lassiter’s condition to the kind, calm and professional dispatcher who asked Shawn a number of questions. He quickly ascertained the chief complaint, name, age and breathing status of the patient. Shawn was quick to reply, desperate to help Lassiter in any way she could.

‘Is he alert and responsive?’ the calm man asked over the phone.

Shawn looked down at Lassiter who was acting very lethargic. His eyes were closed and Shawn found she had to raise her voice more and more just to elicit a response from him.

‘No,’ she said to the dispatcher. ‘He’s conscious but he’s – I- he’s not- Lassiter can you hear me? It’s Shawn. Carlton? You’ve been hurt do you remember?’

Lassiter mumbled something quietly and Shawn lowered her head to hear him.

‘Stairs,’ he murmured.

‘Yes,’ Shawn replied. ‘You hit your head on stairs.’

She returned to the dispatcher.

‘He remembers he hit his head falling down a flight of stairs. But his pupils are two different sizes and he just vomited, and he’s not fully conscious, and he’s got a large wound on his head, and he’s not fully answering me, and-‘

Shawn’s panic was clear. She didn’t deal well in situations entirely beyond her control.

‘You’re doing great, Shawn,’ the dispatcher said, his voice just the exact level-headed tone Shawn needed right now. ‘The ambulance is on its way. It will be here soon, Carlton is going to get the help he needs.’

‘Okay,’ Shawn said, a little less distressed. ‘That’s good.’

‘Did you hear that Carlton?’ Shawn asked loudly. He seemed to respond more when Shawn called him that, so Shawn latched onto it. ‘The ambulance will be here soon.’

Shawn propped Lassiter upright a little more from his slumped position, took off his tie and loosened his top button. She knew loosening some clothing could help in certain medical situations but in her panic she couldn’t recall if that was concussion or seizures. Either way, Shawn wasn’t going to take any risks.

‘He won’t sit up on his own,’ Shawn said into the phone to the dispatcher.

‘He could be concussed, Shawn. Don't panic. Just stay with him and let me know about any changes.’

‘Thank you,’ Shawn said into the phone.

There was a bang as Juliet crashed through the doors, rushing down the stairs. It was clear she had sprinted from her desk the second she had been informed by Buzz. Her pen was still in her hand. There she saw Shawn, dishevelled, Lassiter, barely conscious, both bloodied, both bruised and both looking like… well, looking like they’d been thrown down a flight of stairs.

Shawn put the phone on the ground beside her, careful not to hang up so that the dispatcher continued to have her location. Then, on second thought, she handed the phone back to the nervously hovering Buzz, who grabbed the phone like a lifeline, desperate to be of any assistance.

Shawn interrupted Juliet before she could ask what was going on.

‘Listen,’ Shawn said urgently. ‘Lassiter had a hunch that Cecelia LaFleur had kicked up such a fuss at her son being arrested because she actually knew more than she was letting on. Psychic vibrations had led me to the same spot, I was filled by the spirit of Victor Fabrik and he led me back to the LaFleur estate. Cecelia LaFleur was there, and when Lassiter confronted her about holding back information and then with the evidence against her in the wills, she admitted she was the real killer. She pushed me and Lassie down the stairs to try and quieten us. It was just thanks to the spirit who guided me to safety that we made it here.’

Sure that wasn’t what truly happened, but it was enough information to cover both their asses for now. She didn’t need Lassiter getting in trouble for being dragged along by her to the La Fleur estate. If later on, the Chief wanted to slap Shawn and Lassiter’s wrist for their actions, so be it. But there was too much at stake to waste time on making up excuses with a killer on the loose and a dazed detective at her side.

Juliet, fabulous as always, was lightning quick to the uptake. She heard Shawn’s rapid-fire information, nodded and turned on her heel ready to run in and arrange a team to go after Cecelia, nearly running straight into Chief Vick who had noticed the commotion going on outside and had gone out to investigate.

Juliet filled her in on the situation in record time.

Chief Vick was pale when she saw Shawn injuries and practically grey when she saw Lassiter’s but she handled it better than most would. This wasn’t the first time she’d seen a fellow officer injured, and it wouldn’t be the last.

At least Lassiter was breathing.

‘I’ll go call a team to get to the LaFleur estate right this second,’ Chief Vick said.

‘No,’ Shawn said quickly. ‘She’s long gone by now. We heard her drive off in a car just a few minutes before we could escape.’

‘Ok, Shawn,’ Juliet said, accepting what Shawn told her easily and amending what needed to be done with practiced professionalism. ‘We better send some officers to the airports and keep an eye out on the roads.’

‘I’ll put special emphasis on anyone travelling by private jet,’ Vick added.

Shawn saw a flash of memory, that accursed cell phone that she had found on charge on the kitchen counter. She groaned in unexpected pain when she reached her fingers to her head. It attracted the two officer’s attention.

‘She won’t be travelling by plane,’ Shawn said through gritted teeth. ‘But you should check the harbour for private yachts.’

Shawn tried to recall the lock screen photo, the LaFleur family on a private yacht. It was a picture taken from the deck, with the family filling most of the image. What she had seen of the yacht in the photo had been nondescript. She hadn’t seen names anywhere. Not even on the life preserver rings that she could remember seeing in the very background of the shot. But there had been a distinctive golden bow railing around the deck. She recognised that from somewhere else. Shawn’s acquaintanceship with superyachts was sadly very limited so it didn’t take long to remember where she had seen that distinctive gold railing before.

She returned a hand to her temple and attempted to stand up quickly. She only managed to stumble forward a little and fall to the ground, but the attention grabbing effect worked nonetheless.

She strained to remember the final details.

‘A boat, a big boat. A yacht!,’ she spat out. ‘It’s… it’s… oh it’s on the tip of my tongue. Yes! _Green Eyes_. That’s it. That’s the yacht she’ll be on.’

_Green Eyes._

Shawn could finally recall seeing photos of it peppered around the mansion. Countless family vacations on a large and luxurious private yacht. Photos of Henri standing alone in front of the ship in a white suit, cheeky smile plastered on his face. Yes. She knew she would be proved correct. Pictures around the mansion house proved they owned a boat, but the fact it was part of her lock screen showed it was dear to Cecelia’s heart. It had probably been named by the late Henri after his darling wife and her distinctive green eyes. It was a connection to her family and her late husband.

Juliet nodded and relayed what Shawn had told her to an officer. Chief Vick was on her phone talking into it quickly and firmly. She looked at Lassiter, not even concealing that her expression was concerned. Shawn could hear Buzz’s voice, talking to the kindly dispatcher. His voice had a sharp edge of worry, something it had not held moments ago.

Shawn turned her head. In her haste to bring the cops up to speed she had lapsed in her observation of Lassiter’s current state. He had returned to his slumped state, head in his hands, between his knees.

‘Hey Lassie,’ Shawn called.

There was no response from the Head Detective.

‘Lassie?’

Nothing.

Shawn felt the familiar acidic burn of panic growing in her stomach.

‘Carlton? Can you hear me?’

No response.

Shawn crawled from where she had landed on the ground during her theatrics and tapped him on the shoulder. He didn’t move.

She grabbed his hand and talked to him loudly, repeating again, ‘Carlton, can you hear me?’

She leant over him. Her body curled almost protectively over his, desperately searching for any sign of consciousness. He was breathing slowly had lapsed into non-responsiveness once again. Shawn kept talking to him and shaking him gently until finally he groaned and swatted blearily at the source of irritation.

Her. 

Finally, some normality.

Shawn knelt back in relief. She helped Lassiter sit up in a more comfortable position. She held his hand tightly and caressed his cheek with the other. It was a comforting gesture that was more for her sake than his.

Shawn was frantically relieved when she could at least hear the sound of oncoming sirens in the distance.

‘The ambulance is here now Carlton. It’s going to be okay. Just stay awake a little longer.’

‘Okay,’ he replied blearily, leaning his head into the hand on his cheek.

The simple action soothed Shawn’s beating heart. Even when he wasn’t aware of it, Lassiter had become someone she relied on. Only he could calm her panic so easily.

Driven to such distraction, Shawn missed the look that passed between Juliet and the Chief. It was a flickering glance and the unspoken knowledge that they had discovered something that perhaps Shawn and Lassiter were still not ready to share.

Whilst Juliet rushed off to assemble the necessary units, Chief Vick ended her call, then immediately dialled another number, reluctantly calling her sister Barbara. The coast guard would have to be on the lookout in case Cecelia had already managed to set sail.

The ambulance finally arrived.

As Lassiter was being carefully placed into the back of an ambulance by the EMTs, Shawn was finally examined too. She had brushed off her own treatment until they had looked at Lassiter first. Shawn had sustained no injures that a few weeks of bruising, aches and pains wouldn’t resolve. She had gotten extremely lucky. She had climbed into the back of the ambulance though. The EMTs insisted that despite their assurances that nothing seemed too seriously wrong with her, she’d need to see a doctor anyway. Shawn held onto Lassiter’s hand during the bumpy ride to the hospital. The familiar gesture provided a little comfort, but the most comfort came in the news she received moments after she and Lassiter arrived at the hospital.

She was handed a phone at the nurses’ station.

‘Hello?’ Shawn said, her voice laden with exhaustion.

‘We got her Shawn,’ Juliet said breathlessly. ‘Cecelia LaFleur was arrested while boarding her yacht, _Green Eyes_. She’s admitting to everything. I don’t know how you do it Shawn, I really don’t.’ 

‘Come now Jules,’ Shawn said with a smile. ‘I have to keep some secrets.’


	19. Chapter 19

Lassiter’s stay at the hospital was overnight only. He had insisted, despite the protests of the medical professionals, that he was fine. One night was all he needed. He didn’t give a damn that they thought he should remain under their care for another few days, Lassiter didn’t want to be seen as an invalid and he had quickly grown sick of being handled like he was something fragile.

Lassiter had been poked and prodded by doctors and nurses and given countless tests and examinations. He was in prime pissed off form. His injuries had been tended to and bandaged where necessary, he’d been given a heavy dosage of pain relief and one particularly brave doctor had even successfully managed to wrestle him into wearing a neck brace. Yet his largest source of pain was his lingering chagrin at being caught off-guard and rendered useless by the perpetrator of the murder, Cecelia LaFleur.

He was alone in this sense of embarrassment though as the rest of the department were just happy he was safe, the murderer was caught, and that the media circus could now begin to die down.

Juliet was over the moon that his injures hadn’t been worse.

Chief Vick was just relieved that Lassiter had enough sense not to try to use his gun while concussed.

But Lassiter had to experience the most utmost gun control when Juliet left him back at the LaFleur estate to pick up his car after he was discharged from the hospital. In their panic the day before, Shawn and Lassiter had all but abandoned his car at the side of the road, near the entrance of the LaFleur estate.

As he and Juliet pulled up to the estate, Lassiter could see the fate which had befallen his car. Like roosting pigeons, the paparazzi had taken a liking to the abandoned vehicle. It had become what appeared to be an impromptu leaning post, with bored cameramen, photographers and journalists lounging on the hood of the car. Empty coffee cups littered the roof and all around the sides of the car. His precious car, his pride and joy was being sullied right before his very eyes. By the media no less.

Lassiter mottled in rage.

Juliet who had been carefully working out for the entire journey how she could delicately bring up Shawn and Lassiter’s _closeness_ found all her planning had been for naught. She of all people knew that mentioning Shawn when Lassiter was two steps away from a self-inflicted aneurysm was the last thing one should do. She could practically hear the grinding of Lassiter’s teeth from across the car.

‘Thanks for the ride, O’Hara,’ Lassiter said, his voice barely concealing his fury as he left the car.

Lassiter slammed the door with double the force required.

Juliet jumped at the noise, and mourned privately Lassiter’s less than respectful treatment of her own car.

‘You’re welcome,’ Juliet said with a sigh. She drove on, shaking her head.

Lassiter had hoped that slamming the door would have elicited the same result as the warning shot he really wanted to fire. It worked to some extent. People did turn his direction, but only to half-heartedly snap a photo of the heroic cop who saved the day and caught the criminal. But he wasn’t who they wanted so see, so their dismissiveness was apparent. The media were waiting for Grant LaFleur to return from the police holding cells.

‘Hey Detective Whatever. When’s LaFleur back? Grant LaFleur?’

‘I don’t know,’ Lassiter said with a considerable amount of venom. ‘I’m off duty. It’s not my problem.’

‘Hey aren’t you the one who arrested him in the first place?’ another voice piped up. ‘What, do’ya just arrest people until one confesses or something?’

‘Nice neck brace, Officer,’ a voice called out dryly.

Lassiter’s hand ached to reach for his gun. But he was saved when a large black SUV with tinted windows pulled up to the estate. While the security gates were opening slowly, the car drove through the crowd at a glacial pace. It allowed plenty of opportunities for the curious eyes of the media to press the cameras to the windows in the hopes the flashes would penetrate the tinted glass.

The SUV stopped around forty yards from the mansion entrance. It parked at an angle so that whoever climbed out would still be fully visible to the eagerly awaiting horde who were leaning on the gates, cameras and recording equipment ready and waiting. Out climbed Trish and Tamara LaFleur who were making their sombre and mournful return to the LaFleur estate. That was if sombre meant showing no outward signs of distress and mournful meant stopping for numerous photos from the paparazzi before entering the mansion.

The paparazzi had dropped all interest in Lassiter, who was old news in less than a second as they rushed to the estate gates frenzied, clamouring in their attempt to grab the attention of the LaFleur twins. Lassiter used the momentary distraction to get into his car and drive away. He left in his wake a littering of used coffee cups and a litany of curses directed towards the media.

Whilst Lassiter was tempted to drive to the station to see if there was any way he could be of use in finishing up the case Chief Vick had been firm. He had a day off to recover and he should treat it as such. If he came within fifty yards of the station Vick had threatened him with seeing another police therapist. So he drove past the station, past his own house and towards Shawn apartment.

Lassiter parked in the apartment’s underground parking for a change. After what he and his car had been through in the last forty-eight hours he was willing to risk the possibility that not all of what he parked would be there when he returned. 

The elevator in Shawn’s lousy apartment complex was not working. No big surprise there. So Lassiter traversed the stairs, something that did not agree well with his aching joints and protesting muscles. Thankfully Shawn only lived on the third floor.

Once outside Shawn’s apartment, Lassiter knocked the door. He enjoyed the look of surprise when Shawn opened the door, still on the chain, and saw her guest.

‘What, Spencer, didn’t the spirits tell you I was coming over?’ He said with a slight quirk of his mouth.

‘No, no they didn’t,’ Shawn murmured with a smile.

She closed the door momentarily to unlock the chains then opened the door again, this time to allow Lassiter in.

He entered her apartment and sat on the couch, making himself at home as he always did. Shawn walked stiffly over to the kitchenette area and put on the coffee maker. Lassiter watched her movements. He hadn’t been the only one who had spent the night in the hospital. Shawn had sustained quite the plethora of injuries too. She was limping heavily, avoiding weight on her right hand side. Her short sleeve checked shirt revealed deep lines of bruising, an imprint of the stairs she had hit on the way down during her fall.

The coffee maker chugged into life and Shawn returned to the couch where Lassiter sat, his long arms sprawled along the back of the couch. Shawn took that as an open invitation to sit close to him, so that his arm was now behind her back. She groaned sitting down, a noise that Lassiter shared in tandem as the movement in the couch caused his muscles to ache. Then they shared a laugh at their misery. They were both still tender from the events of the day before.

Shawn had been lucky. She had gotten away literally with bumps and bruises. Albeit they were big bumps that ached deeply, and violent dark purple bloodied bruises that would take weeks to heal fully. Lassiter had bruised muscles, cracked some ribs and gotten ten stitches in his head, not to mention one hell of a concussion. It was unspoken but there was relief in the air that they had gotten away relatively lightly given the fate of the Victor Fabrik, the other victim who Cecelia LaFleur had pushed down the stairs.

The pair sat close together and in comfortable silence until the coffee was ready, content in the other’s presence. Both may have been lost in their own thoughts but they were comforted in the other’s arms.

When the coffee maker beeped to alert that the coffee was ready, Shawn stood up stiffly and prepared two cups of coffee. She brought them over to Lassiter who was thankful. He didn’t think he would have been able to rise from the couch even if he tried. His joints ached from the trip up the stairs and his muscles had stiffened from sitting still, even for a short amount of time. He sat up, straightening his posture with a groan as Shawn placed her coffee cup on the rickety small coffee table that looked suspiciously like the coffee table that had gone missing from the police station a few months earlier. She held his coffee in her hands though and looked at him expectantly.

‘How are you going to pay for this Lassie?’

It was a little in-joke that had developed between the two of them. Shawn was a notorious _‘I left my wallet in my other pants’_ kind of leech. She rarely paid for her own coffee and Lassiter, who more often than not ended up paying for both of them, would frequently withhold Shawn’s own coffee until she answered him.

‘Any way you want, Shawn.’

‘This is very high quality coffee,’ Shawn continued.

‘Oh, is that right?’ Lassiter continued, humouring her.

‘Yeah, my coffee guy, he says this is expensive stuff. The real deal.’

‘Would that be Gus?’

‘You would be correct Lassie. But don’t worry. I replaced whatever I took with gravy granules, so he’ll notice soon enough.’

Lassiter smirked.

‘How special is it then, this coffee?’

‘Special enough that I ask two things in return,’ Shawn said, as she held up two fingers to emphasise her demands.

‘What would those be?’

Shawn loved it when Lassiter played along.

‘We were invited to attend a meal in Victor Fabrik’s Santa Barbara restaurant tonight. It’s a thank-you gift from Grant LaFleur for helping solve the case and for believing his innocence. It’s a reservation for two. Let’s go. Wear your tux.’

‘I didn’t think Grant LaFleur was innocent,’ Lassiter said bluntly.

‘That doesn’t matter because _I did_ and it all worked out in the end. So you can be my plus one tonight. The Julia Roberts to my Richard Gere, only in this scenario neither of us knows which is the correct fork to use. I hear they serve some real fancy stuff. Everything is deconstructed this, and reduction that. Gus told me everything is served in foam form. Word on the street is there might even be some _umami._ But let’s not get too ahead of ourselves. ’

‘I don’t believe Gustor one bit,’ Lassiter said, familiar with Shawn antics. ‘So you want me to go to dinner and wear my tux?’

Oh shoot, that was not what Shawn was aiming for.

‘No!’ she said urgently. ‘We can wear our bathing suits if you want. That doesn’t matter.’

‘So what’s the other thing you want from me?’

Shawn smiled mischievously.

‘A kiss?’

Lassiter feigned a frown.

‘I don’t know if this coffee is good enough to be worth that.’

It was an echo of what Shawn had said the first time Lassiter had offered to barter for her coffee.

'Try for yourself,' Shawn said as she handed him the mug.

He took a sip of the coffee, pretending to think about it carefully, taking a second sip as he pretended to think about it some more.

‘Don’t push your luck sonny. You’re not going to get that coffee for free,’ Shawn warned.

Lassiter sighed, ‘fine, I think a kiss would work just alright. This is some good coffee.’

Shawn smiled as Lassiter placed his mug on the coffee table beside hers and stood up, though admittedly he grumbled and groaned at the painful movement. Standing, Lassiter took Shawn’s waist and pulled her close to him slowly, unhurriedly, as if he had all the time in the world. True to his word his lips gently met Shawn’s, a mere ghost of a kiss, a languid brush of lips that made Shawn’s breath hitch in anticipation of what would come next. Her eyes fluttered closed, and then as a second passed, and nothing changed, she opened them again, expecting to be met by Lassiter’s intense gaze. Instead she saw him drop his hand from her waist and sit back down, leaving Shawn vacant and a little taken by surprise.

‘One kiss was it?’ Lassiter said, retrieving his mug and sipping his coffee. His face was carefully schooled, mock innocence on his brow.

Shawn scrunched her face. What a frustrating man. She was torn between exaltation at a rare glimpse of Lassiter’s silly side and annoyance that what she had wanted to be a passionate moment was nipped in the bud.

Shawn took the coffee right out of Lassiter’s hand, and with her injured hand slowly coaxed him back up until he was standing once again by tugging his tie gently. With a long-suffering sigh he stood up.

With Shawn’s hand against Lassiter’s chest and Lassiter’s guided to be wrapped around her waist once more, they were intimately close again. Their gazes met in anticipation. Their difference in height meant their lips were so temptingly close together. Lingering. Teasing. It felt so natural to close that little distance, and unite. And Shawn, so quick in thought, so able to predict every move in this familiar dance, could feel Lassiter’s lips meet hers before it even happened.

She loved that.

They stood in a haze of coffee and tender kisses. Lassiter tasted sweet. Of course he would, he had to have every cup of coffee cloyingly saccharine. Shawn could taste it on his lips and his tongue. How such an acerbic man could taste so sweet was a dichotomy she took pleasure in.

Another secret they shared.

Lassiter snaked a hand from Shawn’s waist into her hair and let his lips roam, meandering lazily from her mouth to her cheek, to her jaw, down to her neck, pressing kisses to her collarbone. All the while he avoided the deeper of her bruises. He hadn’t shaved for a couple of days and his stubble burned pleasurably against her skin. Shawn’s eyes fluttered closed as she leaned closer into Lassiter’s touches, small falters in her breathing showing him how much she enjoyed his touches. Now they were almost entwined. Working in tandem, as one body. 

Lassiter felt fire in his belly.

More literally than he had intended.

He stopped his affections on Shawn’s neck and looked down.

His tie was dipped in the coffee mug that Shawn was holding. Shawn looked down and noticed too. She snorted as Lassiter jumped back, almost tripping on the couch right behind him. His tie and shirt were soaked with coffee.

‘Spencer, why the hell are you still holding that cup?’ He all but yelled.

‘I was thrown down a flight of stairs twenty-four hours ago Lassie, it hurts to bend,’ Shawn said as if it was obvious.

‘So was I dammit. Apparently you weren’t satisfied with my concussion. You want me to have third degree burns as well!’

‘I was thinking about other things, Lassie.’ Shawn said her voice a little louder. ‘You should know buddy, you were there.’

This was how it always started. Lassiter and Shawn’s voice would rise to match the others. It always resulted in a shouting match although there was no anger or force behind the words.

‘Insufferable woman!’ Lassiter growled.

‘Petulant man,’ Shawn said as she sipped his coffee.

It was too sweet.

She preferred the coffee when she tasted it on Lassiter’s lips, in his mouth, on his tongue.

He took his coffee back and ripped off his soaked tie, tearing off his accursed neck brace while he was at it.

‘Drink your own damn coffee. You’ve ruined my tie, Spencer. Look at it! Do me a favour and add that to the list of crap you don’t pay me back for.’

‘I would but you wouldn’t buy me that notebook to write it down? Remember?’

To the outside, with voices still raised, it probably sounded like an argument, which was most likely why Prisha knocked tentatively at the door a few moments later. Shawn answered the door, after looking through the peephole, although the knock was distinctive enough. She opened the door which was still on the chain and smiled.

Prisha looked concerned and said quietly, ‘I thought I heard raised voices.’

Shawn closed the door then took it off the chain, opening the door fully.

‘You did Prisha, sorry. We just had a little coffee emergency, and things got a little out of hand.’ 

Prisha looked unconvinced. And then she looked downright terrified when she saw the thunderous expression of the SBPD’s Head Detective, coffee soaked tie still in hand.

Shawn looked to where Prisha’s gaze had landed.

‘Oh, don’t worry about him. My friend here made that expression when he was a child. Then the wind changed and his face stayed like that. Turns out it really can happen. Did you know that?’

Prisha didn’t understand. She seldom understood much when she talked to Shawn. Shawn was kind but very eccentric. Prisha supposed that there probably weren’t too many non-eccentric psychics out there. She didn’t want to continue this strange conversation any longer.

‘Well, I just heard shouting and thought I should check in,’ Prisha said slowly, her nervous eyes flickering from Lassiter to Shawn with visible confusion. ‘You know where to find me if you need me.’

‘Thanks Prisha, your concern means a lot,’ Shawn said with a charming smile.

Prisha made her leave more concerned than when she had first knocked.

Door closed, Shawn returned to Lassiter who was untucking his shirt from the waistband of his pants and dabbing the coffee stain with a towel.

‘Dinner reservation is seven thirty, Lassie. Be there or be square.’

Lassiter grunted.

‘Sound like someone wants to be square. Cheer up buddy. That will be enough time for you to go home and get a change of clothes before we have to go. I’ll stay here and get changed too. Some idiot spilled coffee over my shirt.’

Lassiter looked thunderous. An almost default expression when he dealt with Shawn. 

‘Go on,’ she said, ‘time's a tickin’ and all that’.

Lassiter rolled his eyes and picked up his jacket.

‘I get the hint, Spencer. I’ll pick you up at six thirty.’

He leaned over to give Shawn’s cheek a peck before he went. Shawn moved her head so he met her lips, they lingered for a second.

Shawn smiled.

‘I knew that was some good coffee,’ she said at almost a whisper.

Shawn’s smile still made Lassiter’s heart flutter. A winning smile that was just for him. Shawn could drive him from frustration to desperation to jubilation all in the quirk of her lips. He was powerless against her. So Lassiter left, despite the arguments just moments before, with a smirk on his lips and exaltation in his heart.


	20. Chapter 20

1985

‘So Shawn, are you going to tell me what you’ve done this time, or do I need to figure it out myself?’ Henry Spencer asked his petulant-faced daughter, whose small arms were folded angrily.

Shawn Spencer remained staunchly mute.

Henry had received a call half an hour earlier from Shawn’s third-grade teacher as he had been working through a mountain of paperwork. The teacher had said sharply that Shawn and another classmate had been attempting to leave the school during recess, though she wouldn’t explain why. Henry would need to come down to the school to discuss this matter.

He looked at his watch.

It was noon.

On a Tuesday.

He hadn’t even had his second coffee of the day yet and his daughter had already managed to raise hell.

So, Henry Spencer, the stern and highly competent detective had to make his excuses to his partner, drop everything and go see what his head-strong and mischievous daughter had gotten up to this time.

Entering the classroom, Henry Spencer took off his sunglasses and ran his hand through his thinning hair. He didn’t know if was time and age that was causing his hair to thin or the stresses of having to deal with his rebellious and trouble-making daughter. Shawn was only eight years old but Henry had woken up in a cold sweat before, horrified at what her teen years would bring.

The classroom line-up consisted of the usual suspects; an unrepentant-looking Shawn Spencer and a nervous and clearly more guilt-ridden Burton Gustor.

Henry didn’t waste time as he asked his daughter what she had done. 

A pout was her reply.

‘Shawn?’ her father repeated, this time a little more sternly.

‘Don’t ask me dad, ask the wannabe murderer over there,’ Shawn said as she shot a venomous look to her teacher.

Their teacher, a young woman called Miss West, was writing at her table. If she looked like a wannabe murderer, then Henry looked like the Gerber baby. When she saw Henry had arrived, she stood up and walked over to him.

‘Mr Spencer,’ was her familiar greeting.

They had dispensed with the formalities and small-talk after the fifth meeting.

They hadn’t even made it to the first parent-teacher conference yet.

‘Miss West, what have Shawn and Gus done this time?’

‘They were spotted trying to sneak out of the school during recess. Another teacher saw them trying to leave. When they were caught, we found Shawn had put something that didn’t belong to her into her backpack.’

Henry turned to Shawn, his expression dark.

‘Theft Shawn? Really? Come on. That’s a misdemeanour.’

‘I was trying to save them!’ Shawn exclaimed defensively. She leaned forward in her chair her expression entirely earnest.

‘Save who Shawn?’

‘The frogs, apparently,’ Miss West supplied. She sounded sceptical.

‘The frogs,’ Henry repeated blankly.

‘The frogs, Mr Spencer,’ Gus helpfully added.

‘From her,’ Shawn added, slouching in her chair again, shooting daggers at the teacher.

If looks could kill Miss West would have been in some serious danger.

‘Shawn and Burton took the class pets, our frogs, and were attempting to do who-knows-what with them,’ Miss West said. She sounded scandalised.

‘The same frogs you did a class project on a few months ago?’ Henry asked Miss West.

He recalled Shawn writing her project on tadpoles a few months ago at the start of the new school year. She had shown a rare enthusiasm in the project, doting on the tadpoles which she and her classmates had all named individually. Her school backpack was filled with books on amphibians that she had taken out of the library for weeks, until her interest faded and had been inevitably taken over by something new which had grabbed her attention. Given the time that had passed, he guessed those tadpoles had now become the frogs in question.

She nodded.

‘I can’t get them to tell me _why_ exactly they wanted to steal the frogs. I hoped you and Burton’s parents would be able to have a word with them? Speaking of Burton’s parents, here is Mrs Gustor now. Burton, come with me please. I’ll leave Shawn to you, Mr Spencer.’

Miss West and Gus left the room, the teacher was stony faced, but poor Gus, embroiled in another of Shawn’s schemes, looked like a man on the long walk to the gallows.

An executioner might have been more sympathetic than his mother and the punishment he was about to face, Henry reflected.

Now alone Shawn looked, grim-faced as her father lowered himself into a nearby chair, previously occupied by Gus. It was a child’s chair and he struggled to sit in such a low seat while retaining any semblance of dignity. It was a losing battle. Once settled he took a long look at Shawn, who looked directly back at him. Shawn didn’t normally like making eye-contact when she had done something wrong. So Henry was interested to see Shawn’s side of the story.

‘Why’d you steal the frogs, Shawn?’

‘I told you dad. Miss West was going to kill them. She told us all about how she was going to do it in class this morning. We’ve been looking after those frogs all year. They’re our pets! Gus and I couldn’t just let her get away with it. So we had to save them. And we were so close too.’

Shawn sounded defeated.

Henry leaned forward in the small chair.

‘What did she say Shawn? Did Miss West tell you explicitly that she was going to kill the frogs?’

‘Well, she didn’t say it clearly,’ Shawn said slowly. ‘She told us it like a story.’

‘What was the story?’

‘She said that there was a chef and he wanted to cook a frog so he put it in boiling water but it kept jumping out. So instead he put the frog in cold water and slowly turned the heat up. It didn’t realise it was in danger and so it was cooked to death.’

‘That doesn’t sound like a confession there, Shawn,’ Henry said slowly.

‘But dad, that’s not all. _Then_ she said after recess we’d be cooking something, a big surprise. Don’t you see? She was going to make us cook the frogs!’

Henry looked at the ground for a minute. He was working hard at schooling his expression, keeping it neutral. He couldn’t let the smile crack through.

‘Tell me this Shawn,’ Henry said, standing up and walking over to the large aquarium tank where the frogs were kept. ‘What was Miss West talking about when she told you of her plan to cook the frogs?’

Shawn thought for a second.

‘She was talking about dangerous situations. Like people who could hurt you, bullies or mean family members or talking to strangers, and speaking up about them. So here I am speaking up. Bet she regrets teaching us that now.’

‘Shawn, do you know what a fable is?’

‘Is it the guitar that Jeff Beck uses?’

‘No Shawn, that’s a Fender. And how do you even know that anyway? When did you listen to the Yardbirds? No, that doesn’t matter. Listen Shawn, a fable is a made-up story with a meaning behind it. It’s used to teach a moral or lesson. Do you follow?’

Shawn nodded but Henry could tell she didn’t truly comprehend. He continued to explain.

‘The boiling frogs story is a fable. The frog didn’t realise the danger it was in and it got cooked alive. It’s to warn you that you may not realise you’ve been in a dangerous situation until it’s too late. Miss West wasn’t going to cook your frogs, Shawn. She was teaching you to be present and aware of danger, it’s an essential skill.’

‘Oh,’ said Shawn, a flash of understanding brightening her eyes. ‘But then what about her saying we have a big cooking surprise after recess?’

‘If you’d been listening to the radio this morning instead of watching cartoons, you might have heard that it’s national chocolate cupcake day. They had it in their light-hearted section on the news. And those are bags of chocolate chips in the grocery bag next to Miss West’s desk are they not?’

Shawn looked at the bag for a long moment. Henry could practically see the cogs whirring in her young mind.

‘I’m going to have to apologise aren’t I?’ Shawn asked sadly.

Henry walked over to his daughter and ruffled her hair.

‘Yes you are Shawn.’

Shawn sighed and stood up. Henry pulled her to his side, in a hug which she swatted her way out of. She was embarrassed about hugging her old man in school. She was growing up so fast. Too Fast. Henry watched as she straightened her small shoulders and marched to Miss West, who was standing in the hall, letting the parents and children talk.

Henry wasn’t close enough to hear Shawn’s apology but through the large glass windows from the classroom to the hall he could see Miss West nod and seemingly accept Shawn’s apology. That was enough for him. He walked out of the classroom and waved his goodbyes.

‘Thank-you Mr Spencer.’ Miss West said.

‘I’ll see you again soon I can imagine,’ he replied dryly as he left.

When he stepped outside he put his sunglasses back on to avoid the glare of the mid-day sun and when he climbed back into his car and started to drive back to the station, then and only then did he allow a small smile to crack in his expression. The smile turned to a laugh, and Henry Spencer was soon chortling at his daughter’s misunderstanding all the way back to work.

PRESENT DAY

The lady at the podium looked flabbergasted when Shawn walked into the restaurant wearing sneakers and jeans. Shawn could have walked in wearing a sequined bikini, with two tigers on a leash and elicited a similar reaction from the maître d'. She looked equally as horrified when Lassiter followed in behind Shawn moments later.

Neither Shawn nor Lassiter had dressed up much for the meal. Shawn had changed her coffee-stained shirt for another button-up checked shirt. Lassiter had changed his own shirt and tie into another standard ensemble that made up his usual wardrobe. He had known, despite Shawn’s joking to dress up in a tuxedo for the meal, that she wouldn’t have put in much effort to dress up nicely, so he didn’t see any reason to do so either. Shawn had found that a shame. She really wouldn’t have minded a resurgence of the tuxedo.

‘Do you have a reservation?’ the maître d' asked Shawn. She said it in the same way she would have asked if Shawn was planning to have a unicorn as a dinner guest this evening.

‘I do!’ Shawn said breezily. ‘It’s Shawn Spencer.’

The woman checked down the list of names, trailing down the sheet of paper with a manicured finger. She didn’t hide that she was not expecting to find the name written there.

‘It’s Shawn,’ Shawn said, leaning over to read the list. ‘It’s spelled like yawn. But with a sha, instead of a yah. And it’s pronounced like scone unless you pronounced it _sco-ne_. Then Spencer like-‘

‘Spencer,’ the maître d' interrupted, eager to shut her up. ‘I see your reservation right here. Come with me please.’

The maître d' led Shawn and Lassiter to a candlelit table and handed them menus, leaving brusquely. Shawn suspected she’d have handed the menus to talking dolphins or yetis with identical incredulousness. Shawn revelled in the maître d's barely veiled disgust.

Once they had ordered their food, Shawn took the opportunity to look around. There were a number of high profile faces. Shawn recognised some people from the mayor’s office, a handful of lawyers, some judges and a plethora of celebrities. Shawn could name a few, but the rest of the crowd were unfamiliar faces. Shawn had well and truly had her fill of celebrity over the last few days. She paid them little heed.

She and Lassiter chatted amiably through dinner. With such a fantastic menu they both ordered something different and tried each other’s meals. It was something that no one else was doing, but Shawn didn’t mind, it wasn’t like she’d ever get the opportunity to eat in such a luxe restaurant again. Besides, she liked how she and Lassiter were comfortable around one another. They could chat about the food, offer the other a forkful and joke among themselves. The restaurant may have been large and bustling with activity, but for Shawn, the whole room easily faded to just contain her and Lassiter and delicious food.

After the Aperitivo, Antipasto, Primo, Secundo and whatever other fancy Italian term the waiters insisted on referring to the courses as, Shawn and Lassiter were handed the dessert menus. They’d eaten so much that Shawn, had she been wearing a belt, would have had to loosen it but it didn’t stop them from diving into the menus head-first. They weren’t paying the bill at the end of the evening and they’d certainly take advantage of the fact.

Shawn was weighing between strawberry panna cotta or honey semifreddo when, for the first time that evening, she detected familiar voice that wasn’t Lassiter’s.

‘This is a gift from a client on a case we just wrapped up. I thought I’d treat you well tonight, baby,’ a smooth voice said from a little distance away.

Shawn whipped her head around and Lassiter, who saw her quick movement, looked up too.

It was Gus, smooth talking his current beau and light of his life, Kim Wu. He saw Shawn and waved. She waved back. The beleaguered maître d' who saw this interaction visibly lowered her estimation of Gus and Kim, both of whom had actually put a little effort into dressing up for the evening. Shawn felt a little smug that the sheer association with her could ruin a person’s evening. She smiled even more widely.

‘Would you like to sit with this couple here? You seem very friendly,’ the maître d' said with a forced smile.

‘Oh no that’s –’ but before Gus could finish his refusal, the maître d' had enthusiastically called over two waiters to prepare extra settings on the table. Two more chairs swooped in and Gus and Kim found their evening for two unwantedly expanded.

Making the best of a bad situation, Lassiter was unusually pleasant to Gus and Kim. Apparently good food and fantastic wine had mellowed him somewhat. He was content to chat to Kim politely, familiar with her work in legal aid, though keeping shop talk to a minimum. He talked easily to Gus too. Most did, he was far less grating as a person than Shawn and they had a number of shared interests they could converse on easily.

Shawn had been tense at the start, waiting for the teasing and jibing to begin. But Gus didn’t mention anything about Shawn and Lassiter eating together. Shawn found her shoulders visibly relaxed inch by inch. He hadn’t even reacted oddly when he had first caught sight of them.

When had that become nothing unusual?

‘Hey Shawn, what did you have for your main course?’ Gus said, peering over his menu to look at Shawn. ‘If this meal is on the house I want the lobster, but if you have any better ideas, I have an open mind and an empty stomach.’

‘I had the chicken, buddy. It was great.’

‘The steak was fantastic,’ Lassiter added.

‘Ooh, steak,’ said Kim. ‘I like the sound of that.’

Lassiter, Kim and Gus fell into chatter about the menu.

Shawn distanced herself from the conversation for a moment.

‘I’ll be back,’ she said, as she rose from the table.

She walked quickly in the direction of the bathrooms, winding through the tables on the restaurant floor, navigating her way through the room. She walked past the ever disgusted looking maître d', to the hallway, where the bathrooms lay to the right.

She turned left.

Shawn walked onwards, through the fancy double doors, leaving the restaurant and not stopping until she reached the parking lot.

She needed a moment to get some fresh air.

Breathing in and out slowly, Shawn found the cool air was a welcome relief from the stuffiness of the busy restaurant. She looked at the all the fancy cars in the parking lot. Gus and Lassiter’s cars stood out like sore thumbs. The night sky was clear, not a cloud in sight and even in the light of the city Shawn could still see a few stars, valiantly shining. She stared at them for a long moment, straining to see if she could find anymore. When she could not, she looked down again, to the pedestrians and the traffic that still bustled despite the late hour. The city never truly grew quiet. She watched cars driving by with their music turned up way too loud and the tired pedestrians, people taking their dogs on late night strolls, finally walking home from work or even people keen to get a little fresh air like she had wanted. It wasn’t enough to keep her attention, the traffic, the people, the cars, the stars. Shawn needed something more. She was desperate for a distraction, anything at all, to urgently stop the feeling that she had just been hit by a Mack truck.

Maybe two.

She sat down unsteadily on the stairs that led from the restaurant to the parking lot. With her aching joints she landed stiffly but she barely felt it, so lost in her own thoughts.

When had it become a thing that she and Lassiter could go out on double dates?

That wasn’t what they did.

Shawn and Lassiter argued in public, Lassiter lost his temper and Shawn tried to get, not only onto his last nerve, but every other nerve too. In stolen moments they shared a secret. Those arguments ended in fiery kisses and rumpled bedsheets. The yelling fits would end in peals of laughter.

Right now, something was different. Something wasn’t right.

She should run.

Her fight or flight instinct had chosen flight.

Shawn didn’t _do_ double dates. Shawn woke up in a stranger’s bed and sneaked out before they woke up. She made guys buy her drinks then deliberately forgot their name. She did fake phone numbers and relationships that never made it past surface level.

It was Gus who fell too deep too quickly, and it was Shawn who warned him against it. She was a free spirit you just couldn’t tie down.

But it had been a slow process.

It was like the fable she and Gus had learnt about in school. It had been the tale of the chef who wanted to boil a frog. The frog just jumped out of the pot of boiling water, and so the chef put the frog in cold water and slowly began heating it up. As the water heated up, the frog wouldn’t notice the temperature climbing, and before long, it would boil to its death.

Now Shawn wasn’t a fan of that story then, and she still wasn’t now. Boiling frogs never seemed like a good way to educate children about anything and, regardless of what the story said, she knew a real frog would just jump out as soon as the water got too hot.

But she felt distinctly like that metaphorical boiling frog right now.

She’d been in the water so long she hadn’t noticed the danger, and now she was too late.

She had _liked_ being on the double date with Lassiter. It had been fun and enjoyable, but it made her realise that those precious moments where Shawn let her hand linger a moment longer than necessary when passing Lassiter a folder in the precinct, those seconds when their eyes met as Vick was discussing cases, that she had cherished as almost a forbidden romance, meant that in every passing day, the water had been climbing, Degree by Degree, Celsius by Celsius.

Closer, closer, closer, to boiling point.

Shawn had left the restaurant with no jacket, purse or phone. So she would have to return to the merry trio at some point. She couldn’t stay out here forever. But Shawn found that she was frozen in place. She didn’t want to go back in. She couldn’t go back in. Now she had realised she was in the pot, and the lid was firmly on in top of her, the time for action was over.

Shawn’s thoughts spiralled.

She was deep and lost in her own mind. She did what Shawn did best.

Think.

Think.

Think.

Overthink.

And boil alive.

‘Shawn?’ asked a familiar voice, shocking her out of her spiralling. ‘Are you okay?’

She turned to look at Lassiter. From her position, seated on the stairs down to the parking lot, Lassiter looked like a looming shadow.

 _I’m fine_ , was what she meant to say.

‘I love you,’ is what she said instead.

Shawn felt her face flushing violently red immediately. The cool evening air did nothing. She could feel the bubbling water around her, hotter and hotter.

‘What?’ asked Lassiter, rendered idiotic by Shawn’s words.

Shawn stood up and walked away quickly. Her injured body ached at the movement. It didn't matter. She had to get out of here. She needed to get away from him. But Lassiter had long legs, and despite his own injuries, far worse than Shawn’s, he caught up easily.

‘I love you too,’ he said.

Shawn stopped dead in her tracks.

‘What?’ she spluttered just like Lassiter had mere seconds before.

Could her face go any redder? The blood rushing to the surface of her skin was reaching dangerous levels. Shawn could feel her cheeks, her arms, her chest, flooding with feverish embarrassment. She was flushed, uncomfortably hot now, despite the chill in the night air.

She knew it. She had been boiling alive this whole time.

‘You said it first,’ Lassiter said, stopping a few steps ahead of her, turning to look at her once again.

‘Hans shot first,’ she said, staunchly avoiding looking at him.

Lassiter just snorted at her attempt at humour. Failed attempt at that.

She moved her head when he took a step closer to her. She couldn’t look at him right now. She just wanted the ground to swallow her up in one fell swoop.

But the sinkhole remained elusive.

He stepped towards her again, and she stepped back. He calmly took that next step forward, taking her hands gently so she couldn’t make the escape she so desperately hoped for. It looked like an awkward dance, but Lassiter was the lead.

Shawn was clammy and warm to the touch. Lassiter’s hands were cool and dry.

Shawn felt even more floundering when she could tell how calm Lassiter was. How, as she battled through boiling embarrassment, his mind had been completely at ease.

‘You don’t understand,’ she said nervously, looking at their entwined hands.

‘Explain it to me,’ he said.

Shawn wanted to scream at how rational he was being.

‘I don’t- I don’t _do_ love, or long term…. anything, I guess. Lassie you know this. I mean come on, my only long term friend is Gus and that’s a surprise even to me. I push everyone else away sooner or later. But you’re the opposite. You’ve a stick up your ass and you’re all _oh a long term relationship is so good, I just love serious committed relationships_ or whatever,’ she said, imitating Lassiter with a breathy high pitched voice that bore absolutely zero similarity to Lassiter’s actual timbre.

‘I’ve never said that,’ he protested.

‘No, I know, but I… I know you like me, and-’ Shawn fumbled for words. She was usually so good at this. ‘I like you too, and I don’t want to mess this up.’

Lassiter looked at her for a long moment, rubbing his thumb in familiar soothing motions on Shawn’s skin, their fingers entwined.

‘You’re right Spencer,’ Lassiter said eventually. ‘I _am_ all about long term relationships. Flings aren’t really in my vocabulary. I’m old fashioned that way. But Spencer- Shawn, we’ve been doing whatever this is for over a year. This is more than a passing moment of madness. Like it or not. We’re a couple. And our relationship is going well. And you telling me how you feel won’t scare me off.’

Shawn wrinkled her nose a little but found she could meet his eyes again.

‘It sounds so pathetic when you say it like that. But… I might be a little scared about that.’

The fear of Lassiter’s rejection had been a heavy weight on Shawn’s mind since their first bloom of intimacy. If Shawn were a literary fan she would have said that the Sword of Damocles forever weighed perilously close. However, Shawn was more the Saturday morning cartoon type. So she felt as if she was the cartoon roadrunner, and there was an ACME anvil with her name written on it just ready to be dropped on her head at any moment. She had dodged it every time so far, but her luck was bound to run out eventually. One day Lassiter would cast her aside and reject her and she would be left without him. He would dismiss her, and announce that her feelings were not reciprocated. And Shawn would have to find a way to go on alone when all she wanted to imagine was a future where they would be together.

‘I love you Shawn,’ Lassiter said. And it sounded like jubilation and confirmation to Shawn’s ears. ‘You love me too. And this is the most honest we’ve been in this whole relationship. You’re such a pain in the ass, Spencer. Your entire career is built on lying to people, and you say one thing all the time when you mean something else. It’s like a maze sometimes to get a straight answer out of you, but over the last year or so my opinion has changed of you. I don’t want to throttle you anymore… as much.’

Shawn broke into a smile.

‘That’s a lie,’ she said.

‘You’d know a thing or two about lies, Spencer,’ he said good-humouredly, but he let his tone return to serious. ‘You keep surprising me. You prove yourself to the SBPD time and time again, and you’re letting down your walls around me. I’ve enjoyed getting to know Shawn Spencer and the world you inhabit. The real Shawn Spencer, not the Psychic Detective, thorn in my side, pain in my ass. ’

Shawn flushed and found she was uncomfortable again. All this honestly was good for the soul, but played havoc with one’s confidence. She could have been standing there naked and felt less vulnerable than she did at that moment.

Lassiter, ever surprisingly astute, sensed this and pulled Shawn into his chest for a bear hug. He kissed her cheek as Shawn wrapped her arms around his back, underneath his jacket so as to savour his warmth.

‘You may be a big fan of long-term relationships Lassie, but they’re not a big fan of you. Your track record is pretty damn poor.’ She joked weakly.

Lassiter laughed softly, sensing the joking behind her words. Shawn loved how it rumbled deep in his chest.

‘I have an amazing ability to put my foot in it.’

Shawn chuckled. That an understatement if she had ever heard one.

‘Why?’ she asked earnestly.

She was keen to draw conversation away from her. Though, she genuinely did find it hard to understand. Lassiter’s dedication to work could probably be off-putting to many, but it was clear that he was a romantic person. He was passionate and dedicated, to both his work and to her.

‘I think I just have a bad taste in women. I fall for people not suited to me.’

‘Am I included in that?’ she asked playfully.

‘Absolutely,’ he replied, deadpan, tightening his hug. ‘You’re the worst of the bunch. At least no other woman had even made me get punched by her stalker, stole my car to escape running into an old flame while I was too drunk to stop her or got me pushed down the stairs by a crazed millionaire.’

‘Billionaire’ she corrected.

‘Billionaire.’ He repeated.

They fell into contemplative silence.

A moment passed.

‘Say it again,’ Shawn said, her face pressed firmly against his chest. Her voice was almost a whisper.

‘I love you,’ he said simply.

Her arms tightened around him and despite the discomfort he was in from his fall, Lassiter didn’t grumble or make her loosen her clinging.

‘Again.’

‘I love you.’

‘Again.’

‘I love you.’

Her eyes twinkled and Lassiter knew that his heart was for Shawn and Shawn alone. He had fallen, deeply and irreversibly for the woman who made his life a pain. The knowledge that she had fallen just as hard was euphoric.

‘Want to go get dessert?’ Lassiter asked.

‘I love you.’ Shawn said.


	21. Chapter 21

Epilogue

Shawn and Lassiter had moved in together.

Shawn’s lease had run out after six months and although they never discussed it, it just happened.

She had announced a few weeks before that she wouldn’t be renewing her lease, much to the relief of her friends and her father, and on the day when she was scheduled to move out, Lassiter had taken a personal day from work to help her move.

It was the first personal day he had ever taken.

From then on it was a simple progression. The more time they spent together, the more time they wanted to spend together. Shawn would now go to the precinct and make a beeline for Lassiter’s desk, not Chief Vick’s office.

The day Shawn had kissed Lassiter on the cheek when he had gotten her and Gus a coffee in addition to his normal coffee run for himself and Juliet there had been a stunned silence in the bullpen so profound that even the Chief came out of her office to see what had happened. But the shock was soon over with.

Juliet and the Chief’s suspicions were finally vindicated. 

Shawn and Lassiter had fallen into domesticity easily, and their life together worked just as well as it had when they were apart. They were a powerhouse together in the office and Gus and Juliet were all too happy to leave the extremes of their ward’s personality traits to fall upon each other’s ears.

Shawn still swooped in and solved the day in whatever ridiculous way her heart desired and Lassiter got rankled as he always did, fuming at her interferences. But it worked, and it pushed the pair to strive for more, and achieve more.

What they had together was something stronger than anyone could have predicted, something more passionate and dedicated, and as always, it continued to be, something interesting. 


End file.
